Poster of a evil looking Jewish man with snakes for a beard
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 26.875 inches (68.263 cm) | Width: 18.875 inches (47.943 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 has a caricature of a diabolical Jewish man with a long beard that turns into snakes with symbols for Capitalism, Communism and Freemasonry. 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 monochromatic black and offwhite oversized caricature of a diabolically possessed Jewish man's face with sidelocks and a long beard that transforms into 4 snakes at the bottom. The snakes' mouths are open showing sharp fangs and extended forked tongues. Three snakes have red symbols on their heads: a Masonic square and compass, a 5 point Soviet star, and a US dollar sign. Their sinuous bodies twist over a gridmarked globe. The man wears a kippah on his bald head and has thick ears resembling horns, deepset white glaring eyes with large black pupils, and a huge pointed nose. His face is distorted, with slanting eyebrows and creased brow, as he grimaces in anger, mouth open, revealing a few sharp teeth. There is Serbian text in Cyrillic at the bottom of the globe and in a light brown panel. The poster is adhered to slightly larger linen backing.
Subjects
- Anti-Jewish propaganda--Serbia--20th century--Posters--Specimens.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Antisemitism--Pictorial works.
- Antisemitism--Serbia--History--20th century--Posters.
- World War, 1939-1945--Propaganda--Posters.
- Antisemitism in art.
Genre
- Posters
- Object