Ten Green Bottles (book)
Ten Green Bottles is a non-fiction memoir by Vivian Jeanette Kaplan, first published in 2004 by St. Martin's Press. It tells the true story of Kaplan’s mother, Gerda Karpel, who is called Nini in the book. Nini, a Jewish girl from Vienna, escapes Nazi-occupied Vienna for Shanghai under Japanese rule. The title comes from a song sung by British servicemen in Shanghai. The book has been published in several languages, including German (Von Wien nach Shanghai), Italian (Dieci Bottiglie Verdi), Hungarian (Sanghaji Fogsag), and Chinese (十个绿瓶子).
Told from Nini’s perspective, the narrative begins in 1921 when she is five years old. It covers her upper-middle-class Vienna childhood, the birth of her brother Willi, and her father’s death soon after. The story describes daily life in Vienna and the political upheaval after the assassination of Engelbert Dollfuss, along with the growing threat to democracy and the changes that lead toward World War II.
The book was adapted into a stage play. The English-language premiere took place in Toronto in 2009, produced by Te-Amim Theatre and Threshold Theatre, with Mark Cassidy writing and directing. The cast included Sascha Cole as Nini, Daniel Krolik as Poldi, Ginette Mohr as Stella, Nathan Schwartz as Willi, and Lauren Brotman as Erna.
Ten Green Bottles has won awards including the Canadian Jewish Book Award (Canada) and the ADEI–WIZO Award (Italy).
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:52 (CET).