Fritz and Kurt by Jeremy Dronfield
Fritz and Kurt author Jeremy Dronfield has written a moving piece about his book and the family who inspired it. His adult fiction novel was a bestseller and readers felt their children should also know this story so he wrote a version for them.
My new book, Fritz and Kurt, tells the extraordinary true story of two Jewish brothers in the Holocaust. It’s been nearly ten years in the making. I first discovered the story in 2013, when I learned of the existence of a secret concentration camp diary written by Gustav Kleinmann, the father of Fritz and Kurt.
Fritz and his Papa were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in 1939, the beginning of a five-year struggle of loss, endurance, resistance and escape. The diary tells how, in 1942, when Papa was transferred to Auschwitz, Fritz volunteered to go with him. Fritz knew they would probably die there, but he couldn’t bear to be without his beloved Papa. When I read the diary’s account of that decision, I knew I had to tell this phenomenal story. The diary is too patchy and difficult to understand in itself (unless you’re a Holocaust historian), so I researched around it, found archived interviews left behind by Fritz (who died in 2009), and located Fritz’s brother, Kurt, who was still alive and living in America.
I spent many hours interviewing Kurt, and we became friends. He told me all about their family life in Vienna in the days ‘before Hitler came’ and about his special childhood bond with Fritz. He also told me about his own story of life in Vienna under the Nazis, and how he escaped to America in 1941, all alone, aged only eleven.
My book about Fritz, Kurt, Papa, and their astounding, terrible ordeals and adventures took three years to research and write. It was published in 2019 as The Boy Who Followed His Father into Auschwitz and became an international bestseller, translated into twenty languages.
After that book came out, many people who had been moved and inspired by the Kleinmann family’s story told me that they wished their children could read my book. At its core, it’s a story about children living through one of history’s greatest tragedies; it’s about children’s courage, love, and resilience. Young readers should be able to read it for themselves.
I felt strongly that it had to be a new book, written specially for children – not just an abridged or simplified edition of the original. Brothers Fritz and Kurt would be in the foreground, the story told from their viewpoints. And while some harrowing events would have to be either omitted or written in a way children could cope with, it mustn’t downplay the realities of the Holocaust. Writing Fritz and Kurt has been one of the greatest creative challenges I’ve ever faced. Discovering David Ziggy Greene’s art was a major step – his beautiful touch with stark, angular figures is perfect, with a charm and humour that help make the subject accessible for kids.
Returning to my original research, I made new discoveries and found important new insights, unique to the telling of the story in Fritz and Kurt. Fritz’s experiences at the hands of the Vienna Gestapo; the Nazi race scientists who studied the Jewish prisoners, the whole truth about the friends and neighbours who betrayed Fritz and Kurt’s family to the Nazis, Kurt’s struggle to adapt to life in wartime America without his brother and family – these and other details are new in this telling of the story.
I’m immensely proud of this book, and sorry that Kurt did not live to see it published. He knew it was in preparation, though, and was thrilled that his story would be read by coming generations of young readers. This book and its predecessor are my memorial to Kurt, to Fritz, and to their extraordinary family.
A free educational Guide for Parents, Guardians and Teachers has been produced to go with Fritz and Kurt. It can be downloaded from jeremydronfield.com.
Fritz and Kurt is published by Puffin Books and available now.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the Federation.