The Jew Having Fun Poster of a Jewish man whipping tops with faces of Allied leaders

Antisemitic, anti-Allies poster acquired by Raymond Rocca in 1945 when he was a United States soldier serving in Rome, Italy. The poster depicts a Jewish man using a whip to spin dreidels with caricatures of the Allied leaders, Franklin Roosevelt, Alcide De Gasperi, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. Italy, under the Fascist dictatorship of Mussolini, was an Axis member and entered World War II (1939-1945) as an ally of Germany. In May 1943, the Axis campaign in North Africa collapsed and they surrendered to the Allies. That July, Allied forces invaded Sicily. Mussolini was arrested by his own government and, in September, Italy unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. Germany then occupied north and central Italy. They launched an offensive that confined Allied troops to the south for 20 months marked by the most ferocious battles of the war. The German SS launched systematic deportations of Jews and engaged in severe reprisals against Italian partisans and civilians. The Allies broke the stalemate in late spring 1944, but never won a decisive victory. The war ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945.