Jewish Equilibrium Anti-Jewish, anti-Allies poster of Churchill and FDR on a Jewish controlled seesaw
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 19.000 inches (48.26 cm) | Width: 27.750 inches (70.485 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
Antisemitic propaganda poster issued in German occupied Serbia in the fall of 1941. It portrays Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill sitting on a seesaw balanced on a globe, controlled by a caricatured Orthodox Jew. The poster was created for the Grand Anti-Masonic Exhibition held in Belgrade from October 22, 1941, to January 19, 1942. The exhibit focused on the alleged Jewish-Communist-Masonic conspiracy to achieve world domination. Jews were portrayed as the source of all evil, which had to be destroyed, along with Jewish controlled countries, such as the Soviet Union and the US, and any outsider groups that opposed Nazi Germany. Yugoslavia was 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 of Milan Nedic 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
Color offset lithograph poster with a yellow background and a red border. It depicts a caricature of a giant Orthodox Jewish man controlling a makeshift seesaw where 2 caricatured men sit in profile, facing each other from opposite ends. The man on the left is Franklin D. Roosevelt, a balding man with a pince nez, a blue suit, and a crutch; the man on the right is Winston Churchill, a fat, bald man in a gray suit. Both men are looking up, with mouths agape, at the Jewish man who has peyot, a long white beard, black eyebrows, and a large, hooked nose. He wears a long black coat and a cap with a Star of David. He stands gloating, with his elbows out, hands on hip, straddling the center of the board which balances upon a blue globe with 2 centered red continents, Europe and Africa, casting a black shadow on the right. Serbian text is printed vertically down both sides. The poster is adhered to slightly larger linen backing. See 2009.367.1 for another copy of this poster.
People
- Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Churchill, Winston, 1874-1965--Caricatures and cartoons.
Subjects
- World War, 1939-1945--Propaganda, German--Posters--Specimens.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Anti-Jewish propaganda--Germany--Posters--Specimens.
- Nazi propaganda--Posters--Specimens.
- Propaganda, Anti-American--Germany--Posters--Specimens.
- Propaganda, Anti-British--Germany--Posters--Specimens.
- Antisemitism--History--Posters--Specimens.
Genre
- Object
- Posters