Hitler, the Tiger and Me

At the center of this film is Judith Kerr, a lively ninety-year-old author and illustrator, who sits down to recall the memories that shaped her life and work. Rather than give a chronological lecture, she pieces together moments from childhood, describing the decision to leave Germany as the Nazi threat grew and the long-term effects of exile. The camera lingers on her sketches and family photographs while she speaks, so you get a sense of how private recollection and public history overlap. The film follows her eventual return to Berlin and the ways that memory, place and creativity have stayed connected across decades, without revealing any surprising turns.

Directed by Jill Nicholls and released in 2013, the documentary is built around interviews with Judith Kerr and presenter Alan Yentob, combined with archival material and illustrative artwork to animate the narrative.

The film emphasizes themes of memory, displacement, and the creative impulse. It shows how early experience can influence the stories an artist tells later on, and how humor and warmth coexist with difficult recollection. Tone is intimate and reflective, aimed at viewers interested in history, literature, and personal testimony rather than fast-moving documentary tricks.

By focusing on an individual who moved between countries and cultures, the film encouraged renewed consideration of refugee experience and the ways childhood events echo through a lifetime. For admirers of illustration and children’s books, it offered a rare, personal account of an artist at work, and for educators it provided material useful for discussing history, identity and the role of storytelling in coping with change.