“Bambi” was not a fairy tale but a tale about anti-Semitism

The story Bambi, a life in the woods, written by Austrian journalist Felix Salten in 1923 and made into the famous animated feature film of 1942, was not intended for children. Instead, it was conceived as a parable of anti-Semitism and the merciless persecution of the Jews that Nazism would carry out in a few years. A premonitory novel, very different from the saccharine story of a fawn who finds love and friendship in a wood popularized by Walt Disney.