Poster of a Jewish Bolshevik shaking his fists in defense of NYC
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 12.250 inches (31.115 cm) | Width: 8.625 inches (21.908 cm)
Creator(s)
- Gino Boccasile (Designer)
- 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-Semitic, anti-American Nazi propaganda poster issued in German occupied Italy ca. 1943, with a cartoon of a Jewish Bolshevik shaking his fists at all comers with the New York City skyline behind him. The threat of the Jewish Bolshevik or Judeo-Communist conspiracy was a cornerstone of Nazi Party ideology. The 1917 Communist revolution that brought down the Russian Empire shocked the world. The prominence of Jews in the Bolshevik leadership fueled this imaginary merger of international conspiracies between the Communists and the Jews to destroy civilization and take over the world. In July 1943, 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, launching an offensive that confined Allied troops in the south for 20 months. 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. The war ended with Germany's surrender in May 1945. 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 paper with a cartoon of a foregrounded, oversize, husky Jewish man lunging forward with raised fists, right arm extended as though threatening to punch the viewer. He has dark hair, sidelocks, a scruffy mustache, a short beard, and a huge nose. His deepset eyes glare angrily below thick eyebrows and his big, thick lips are turned up in a sinister grin. He wears a brown Bukharian kippah and a black coat with a red Soviet star. He is superimposed over a background of the New York City skyline with the Statue of Liberty. The artist's signature, Boccasile, is printed in the bottom left. It is adhered to cardboard with 2 holes at the top threaded with a red cord.
Subjects
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Propaganda, Anti-American--Posters.
- Propaganda, Anti-communist--Posters.
- Anti-Jewish propaganda--20th century--Posters--Specimens.
- Propaganda, Anti-Soviet--Posters.
- Nazi propaganda--Posters.
- Jewish communists--Caricatures and cartoons.
- World War, 1939-1945--Propaganda--Posters.
- Antisemitism--20th century--Pictorial works.
Genre
- Object
- Posters