The Jew Having Fun Poster of a Jewish man whipping tops with faces of Allied leaders

Identifier
irn543881
Language of Description
English
Alt. Identifiers
  • 2016.184.357
Dates
1 Jan 1944 - 31 Dec 1945
Level of Description
Item
Languages
  • Italian
Source
EHRI Partner

Extent and Medium

overall: Height: 18.250 inches (46.355 cm) | Width: 13.625 inches (34.608 cm)

Creator(s)

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, anti-Allies poster with a caricature of a Jewish man using a whip to spin dreidels with caricatures of Allied leaders, Franklin Roosevelt, Alcide De Gasperi, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. Italy, under the Fascist dictatorship of Mussolini, was an Axis member and entered World War II (1939-1945) as an ally of Germany. In May 1943, the Axis campaign in North Africa collapsed. That July, Allied forces invaded Sicily. Mussolini was arrested by his own government and, in September, Italy unconditionally surrendered to the Allies. Germany occupied north and central Italy and launched an offensive that confined Allied troops to 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, but never won a decisive victory. 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 lithograph poster in black ink on light brown paper with a caricature of an oversized man, standing with rolled up shirtsleeves, brandishing a long whip labeled Giudaismo [Judaism] in his raised right hand. He wears a checked shirt, high waisted cuffed pants, and oxfords. He has pronounced Jewish features: curly hair, thick eyebrows, a short forked beard with a trim mustache, an extremely long, hooked nose, and open, fleshy lips. He looks angrily down at 4 large tops spinning in a row in front of his feet. The tops have caricatured faces: on the left is a man with a long face, pince nez, and teeth gritted in a smile, Roosevelt; the next face is smaller, bald with a set mouth and circular glasses, Gaspari; then a round, bald face, frowning and clenching a cigar, Churchill, and finally, a stern looking man with thick black hair, unibrow, and mustache, Stalin. The title is in Italian across the bottom. See 1998.139.2 for another version of this poster.

People

Subjects

Genre

This description is derived directly from structured data provided to EHRI by a partner institution. This collection holding institution considers this description as an accurate reflection of the archival holdings to which it refers at the moment of data transfer.