A Jew is Holding Strings in His Hand Poster of a Jewish man dangling Stalin and Churchill puppets
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 23.000 inches (58.42 cm) | Width: 27.625 inches (70.168 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 smirking Jewish puppeteer operating marionettes resembling Stalin and Churchill. 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
Offset color lithograph poster on light brown paper with a semi- repulsive caricature of a smirking Jewish man as a puppeteer controlling 2 marionettes. The man has hooded eyes, a big nose and ears, and thick lips, and wears a medal with a gold ribbon Masonic color with Jewish and Masonic symbols. He stands behind a chest height white curtain, arms out to the sides, with strings connecting his fingers to the puppets. The left puppet is a moustached man in a green Soviet Army uniform with red stars, holding a lit bomb. The right puppet is a bald man with a cigar wearing a British Brodie soup plate helmet and morning dress of a black jacket and gray pinstriped trousers, with a Masonic apron and collar. There is a skull above the Jewish man's head and floor length, dark blue curtains with gold Jewish and Masonic symbols to each side. There is Serbian text in the center and in a light brown panel across the bottom. The poster is adhered to slightly larger linen backing.
People
- Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965--Caricatures and cartoons.
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945--Propaganda--Posters.
- Antisemitism--Pictorial works.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Anti-Jewish propaganda--Serbia--20th century--Posters--Specimens.
- Antisemitism--Serbia--History--20th century--Posters.
- Antisemitism in art.
Genre
- Posters
- Object