Aryan Child Used In Nazi Propaganda Was Jewish
- 10 years ago
An infant used as the image of the perfect Aryan child in Nazi propaganda was actually a baby Jewish girl.
An infant used as the image of the perfect Aryan child in Nazi propaganda was actually a baby Jewish girl.
Hessy Levinson Taft, now age 80, told her story to the Bild newspaper in Germany about being the girl in the widely circulated photo.
She had her picture taken in 1935 by Hans Ballin, a photographer in Berlin, who then entered the photo as part of a beauty contest held by the Nazis to find the image of the perfect Aryan child.
The irony of the choice wasn’t lost on the photographer who reportedly submitted the winning photo of Taft as an inside joke against the Nazis.
The image was reportedly used on postcards, advertisements and in storefront windows.
As a young girl, she was forced to stay in hiding to prevent being recognized from the images of her face in public.
Taft, a professor of chemistry at St. John‘s University in New York is quoted as saying: “I can laugh about it now. But had the Nazis known who I really was, I would not be alive today.”
She recently gave a copy of the Nazi publication called ‘the Sun in the Home,’ with her baby picture on the cover to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum located in Israel.
An infant used as the image of the perfect Aryan child in Nazi propaganda was actually a baby Jewish girl.
Hessy Levinson Taft, now age 80, told her story to the Bild newspaper in Germany about being the girl in the widely circulated photo.
She had her picture taken in 1935 by Hans Ballin, a photographer in Berlin, who then entered the photo as part of a beauty contest held by the Nazis to find the image of the perfect Aryan child.
The irony of the choice wasn’t lost on the photographer who reportedly submitted the winning photo of Taft as an inside joke against the Nazis.
The image was reportedly used on postcards, advertisements and in storefront windows.
As a young girl, she was forced to stay in hiding to prevent being recognized from the images of her face in public.
Taft, a professor of chemistry at St. John‘s University in New York is quoted as saying: “I can laugh about it now. But had the Nazis known who I really was, I would not be alive today.”
She recently gave a copy of the Nazi publication called ‘the Sun in the Home,’ with her baby picture on the cover to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum located in Israel.