Vinnitsa Poster of a Jewish Soviet soldier aiming a gun over a massacre
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 33.125 inches (84.138 cm) | Width: 23.125 inches (58.738 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
German anti-Soviet, anti-Jewish propaganda poster issued in the contested regions of Poland and Ukraine in 1943. It shows a disembodied Jewish Soviet soldier aiming a revolver at the viewer, and looming over a group of Ukrainian women standing amidst piles of dead bodies. The poster refers to mass executions carried out by the Soviet government in Vinnitsa (Vinnytsia] Ukraine in 1937 and 1938 as part of the Yezhov terror, a campaign of political, civilian repression. During the war, Germany sought instances of Soviet perpetrated violence against Ukrainians and local non-Jewish populations to exploit as graphic propaganda that would turn the locals against the Soviets and frighten them into supporting Germany. From May to July 1943, German forces exhumed 66 mass graves of murdered civilians near Vinnitsa. The Germans then linked this to the always looming threat of the Jewish Bolshevik conspiracy to dominate the world and crush those who opposed them. This poster is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of anti-Semitic 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 the disembodied head and shoulders of an oversized soldier pointing the barrel of a revolver at the viewer. He wears a cap with the red Soviet star and has hooded eyes, a huge nose, and fleshy lips. He emerges from a hazy red background, looming above a black and white scene of women standing beside piles of dead men. The women cry, wring their hands, and stare at the bodies. The Ukrainian title is across the bottom. It is adhered to slightly larger linen backing.
Subjects
- Jewish communists--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Propaganda, Anti-Soviet--Germany.
- Soldiers--Caricatures and cartoons.
- World War, 1939-1945--Propaganda--Posters.
- Jews--Caricatures and cartoons.
- Nazi propaganda--Posters--Specimens.
- Antisemitism--Germany--History--20th century--Posters.
- Anti-Jewish propaganda--Germany--20th century--Posters--Specimens.
- World War, 1939-1945--Atrocities--Ukraine (Vinnytsia)--Posters.
Genre
- Object
- Posters