Antisemitic handbill picturing all Jews as traitors who should be shot

Special printing of the newsheet L'Antijuif" (anti-Jewish) in Janaury 1899 during the Dreyfus Affair, a political scandal revolving around antisemitism that inflamed France in the late 19th century. The color illustration, captioned :If the Jews would lead the war..." depicts French citizens cheering a military parade while shooting a row of Jews, traitors who caused the coming war against England, a war that never took place. Dreyfus was an army captain found guilty of treason in 1894 for selling French military secrets. Antisemitic publications used him as a symbol of the disloyalty of all French Jews. In 1896, another man was tried and acquitted of the same crime. Emile Zola, a prominent author, wrote a letter to protest the verdict, titled "J'Accuse," in which he accused the French Army of covering up its unjust conviction of Dreyfus. Zola was charged with libel and the Dreyfus Affair grew into a national political crisis. An Army intelligence officer was found to have forged the document proving Dreyfus's guilt, but despite the confession of the actual traitor, the Army again convicted Dreyfus and sentenced him to prison for another ten years. The verdict was met with outrage around the world. Dreyfus was offered a pardon by the president to end the crisis, which he accepted September 19. This newsheet is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.