"Standing up for what you know is right is not always easy. Especially if the one you face is bigger and stronger than you. It is easier to look the other way. But, if you do, terrible things can happen."
Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust is a children's book by British-American author Eve Bunting. Originally published in 1980, the book is Exactly What It Says on the Tin - an allegory for The Holocaust and isolationism, with animals for characters.
Perhaps what the book is notable for - apart from its theme, which is rather deep for a book aimed at children - is having the art of Stephen Gammell, better known for the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books.
The book provides examples of:
- An Aesop: Don't look the other way when something that intimidates you is happening.
- Asshole Victim: Downplayed, but when The Terrible Things take away a new crop of victims, the forest creatures that were left alone snidely state that they never liked them anyway, only for them to get singled out by The Terrible Things later on.
- My God, What Have I Done?: After emerging from his hiding place, Little Rabbit laments that he didn’t stick together with the rest of his fellow rabbits. He tells himself that if they had hid together, more of them could have been spared.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Terrible Things are a quite obvious stand-in for the Nazis.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The Terrible Things are almost never seen directly. All that is initially seen are ominous shadows, and nets thrown at the creatures. That is until an illustration near the end reveals one of them, which shows a blackened skull wearing round spectacles, probably a warped portrait of Heinrich Himmler
- Oh, Crap!: Every time The Terrible Things shows up, they inquire that they are looking for a group of animals with a certain body part or feature. This causes the species with said features each time to panic and try to escape. But most of them are caught anyway.
- Only Sane Rabbit: Little Rabbit is the only animal in the clearing who questions why the Terrible Things keep abducting animals, and why nobody even tries to stop it from happening. He also has enough sense to hide when the Terrible Things come for the rabbits, which allows him to escape to try and warn the rest of the forest in case the Terrible Things come back again.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Little Rabbit is the only one left after the Terrible Things have abducted all the other animals, and the narrative states that he plans to inform other forest creatures about the Terrible Things, hoping they'll listen.
- Too Dumb to Live: Rather than work out a plan to hide from or even fight back against The Terrible Things, the creatures of the forest simply go about their business between visits, and then make excuses why the capture of their latest victims were no big deal. Justified considering what it's an allegory for.
