Exiled writer who recorded children’s experiences of the Spanish war
She drew on children she met at an International Brigades home, seeking to represent their memories and emotions rather than treating them only as an audience for propaganda.
German Jewish writer for children and young readers. After fleeing Nazi Germany for France, she worked at the Ernst Thälmann children’s home established by the International Brigades in Spain. Children’s experiences informed her novel Vier spanische Jungen. Deported to Auschwitz in 1942, she is believed to have been murdered there; the exact date of her death is unknown.
Child relief and war literature
Rewald’s work in child relief shows that the international volunteers’ activities extended beyond combat. Stories from children at the Ernst Thälmann home became material for Vier spanische Jungen. Writing about the conflict meant bringing its political character together with children’s everyday lives, fears, and feelings.
In chapter 6 of Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War, Lena Hein examines Rewald’s manuscripts and personal papers to consider how childhood experiences were reconstructed as literature. A novel is not an unmediated transcript of testimony, but it can open a route into experiences often excluded from adult-centered military histories. Rewald’s political commitments therefore need to be read alongside her attention to young readers’ understanding.