Poster with a giant caricatured Jewish man holding businessmen in a noose
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 27.500 inches (69.85 cm) | Width: 19.000 inches (48.26 cm)
Creator(s)
- Peter Ehrenthal (Compiler)
Biographical History
The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Katz Family
Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
Scope and Content
Anti-Jewish poster issued in German occupied Serbia in the fall of 1941 for the Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition in Belgrade from October 22, 1941, to January 19, 1942. It depicts a grotesque caricature of an oversized Jewish man pulling a rope around the necks of six men in business clothes to show the ways Jews manipulate financial markets and have a stranglehold on business. The exhibit focused on the alleged Jewish-Communist-Masonic conspiracy to achieve world domination with the intent to increase hatred against outsider groups that opposed Nazi Germany. Yugoslavia had been invaded and dismembered by the Axis powers in April 1941. Germany annexed most of Slovenia and placed Serbia under military occupation. The exhibition was organized by the Serbian puppet government in collaboration with the German occupiers. This poster is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Poster on paper with a gradient red background. Filling the upper half is a caricature of an oversized man wearing a long, black coat and a skull cap with a Star of David. He is scowling and his nose is disproportionately large for his already exaggerated stereotyped Jewish features. His skin is whitish, and he has a long, forked, pointed beard and side curls], with large ears, hooded eyes, thick eyebrows, and an open mouth with 2 teeth. He grips in both hands a thick yellow rope with a slip knot around the necks of 6 men half his size in business clothes. The men are agonized, choked, and pulled off the ground by the thick rope around their necks; their faces are pink at the extremes, and some have open mouths with protruding tongues, and splayed limbs. There is Serbian cursive text above and on the left, and across the lower edge. The poster has a narrow blank border and is adhered to slightly larger linen backing.
Subjects
- Antisemitism--Serbia--History--20th century--Posters.
- Jewish businesspeople--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Antisemitism--Pictorial works.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- World War, 1939-1945--Propaganda--Posters.
- Anti-Jewish propaganda--Serbia--20th century--Posters--Specimens.
- Antisemitism in art.
Genre
- Object
- Posters