The couple ran, hand-in-hand, to the nearest bicycle shop; nervous, frantic, and desperate with the looming armies advancing in the past days. The radios had announced hours earlier that the city would not be defended from the approaching Nazi forces. The couple didn’t have a car; none of the trains were running; two million Parisians had already fled. Hans and Margret tried out the tandem bike for sale but realized that they couldn’t manage. Instead, the anxious pair resorted to buying spare bicycle parts, which cost them as much as they had been paying for a month’s lodging at a respectable hotel—the manic inflation reflective of the exodus at hand. Hans somehow constructed two separate bicycles that night, from the hodgepodge of pieces they had purchased the day prior. Early the next morning, under the cover of still dark skies, the couple departed the city, with the explosion of mortar shells audible in the distance. They carried with them some food rations, a little clothing… and the manuscript for a children’s book.

This is the story about a story… and a couple, whose harrowing tale of survival in the face of grave evil, would help give the world one of its most beloved characters.

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