They rode their makeshift bicycles for four long days until reaching the French-Spanish border, where they sold them for train fare to Lisbon. The Nazis entered Paris just hours later, but the Reys were already on their way out. They brought very little with them on their predawn flight - only warm coats, a bit of food, and five manuscripts, one of which was Curious George. Early in the morning of June 14, 1940, the Reys set off on their bicycles. Knowing that they must escape before the Nazis took power, Hans cobbled together two bicycles out of spare parts. Hitler and his Nazi party were tearing through Europe, and they were poised to take control of Paris. But the late 1930s and early ’40s were a tumultuous time in Europe, and before the new manuscript could be published, the Reys-both German Jews-found themselves in a horrible situation. and the Nine Monkeys in the British and American editions) was the result, and it marked the debut of a mischievous monkey named Curious George.Īfter Raffy and the Nine Monkeys was published, the Reys decided that Curious George deserved a book of his own, so they began work on a manuscript that featured the lovable and exceedingly curious little monkey. It was there that Hans published his first children’s book, after a French publisher saw his newspaper cartoons of a giraffe and asked him to expand upon them. Hans and Margret were married in Brazil on August 16, 1935, and they moved to Paris after falling in love with the city during their European honeymoon. Margret convinced Hans to leave the family business, and soon they were working together on a variety of projects. They were reunited in 1935 in Rio de Janeiro, where Hans was selling bathtubs as part of a family business and Margret was escaping the political climate in Germany. The two met briefly when Margret was a young girl, before she left Hamburg to study art. Margarete Elisabeth Waldstein (who would be known to most of the world as Margret Rey) was also born in Hamburg on May 16, 1906. He grew up there near the world-famous Hagenbeck Zoo, and developed a lifelong love for animals and drawing. Hans Augusto Rey was born on September 16, 1898, in Hamburg, Germany.

Original curious george books