The effect of the circulation of these anti-semitic stereotypes among children can be observed in a school composition that was published by Der Stürmer in 1935. The title of the composition is the sentence on the sign in the last illustration: "The Jews are our misfortune." A short excerpt from this composition will suffice to demonstrate the effect of anti-semitic propaganda upon the young. " Regrettably, there are still many people today who say: Even the Jews are creatures of God. Therefore you must respect them. But we say: Vermin are animals too, but we exterminate them just the same. The Jew is a mongrel. He has hereditary tendencies from Aryans, Asiatics, Negroes, and from the Mongolians. Evil always preponderates in the case of a mongrel..." Virtually every sentence of this composition reflects the anti-semitic ideas disseminated among young children via propaganda picture books published by Der Stürmer.
Der Giftpilz (The Poisonous Mushroom) appeared in Germany in 1938 and leaves little question regarding the intended Nazi solution to the "Jewish problem." The book begins innocently enough by describing a favorite German pastime, picking wild mushrooms in the woods. A young boy, Franz, accompanies his mother on a walk in a beautiful, wooded area and helps her gather mushrooms. After carefully describing and showing Franz several varieties of both edible and poisonous mushrooms, his mother compares the good mushrooms to good people and the harmful mushrooms to bad people. The most dangerous people are, of course, the Jews.
Franz proudly announces that he has learned in school that the Jews are bad people. His mother continues her comparison of Jews to mushrooms by emphasizing that, just as poisonous mushrooms are difficult to distinguish from edible ones, it is difficult to differentiate Jews from Non-Jews because Jews can assume many forms. Franz's mother repeatedly alludes to the terrible destructive force of the Jews. One Jew can destroy an entire people because the Jew is the Devil in human form. The Jew poses a deadly threat not only to the survival of the German people but to the survival of the world! It is Germany's obligation to warn the rest of the world about this terrible toadstool and thereby save humanity from destruction. Thus begins one of the most insidious storybooks ever composed for children.
Thematically, the book is organized around an anti-semitic attack on three fronts: physical appearance, religious beliefs, and moral values. After the introduction comparing the Jews to poisonous mushrooms, there is a chapter dedicated to enabling German children to recognize Jews. In school during the "Jewish lesson," German children are instructed about the "physical characteristics" of Jews and encouraged to recite them. Even more venomous are the subsequent chapters, whose stories are essentially assaults upon the Talmud and the moral fiber of Jewish society itself.
Several laws of the Talmud are studied by Sally, a boy preparing for his bar mitzvah. As the rabbi, an old Jew with a long beard and a face that looks like the Devil himself, poses questions and the young man answers them, a pattern of perversion, intended to dehumanize Jews and convert them into the embodiment of an ever-present danger to the well-being of German society, emerges that hammers away at reality, replacing it with distortion. This pattern is evident in the dialogue between Sally, the young Jew, and the rabbi on the subject of work. Sally mentions the German proverb, " Work is no disgrace," and contrasts it to what he supposedly finds written in the Talmud.
In the Giftpilz version of the Talmud, "Work is quite harmful and hardly to be tolerated." Sally elaborates on this statement, saying "for that reason, we Jews do not work, we engage in business. Non-Jews have been created to work and serve Jews..." Here the Talmud, the book of Jewish law and tradition, is represented as advocating the enslavement of Germans to the service of Jews. The absurdity of such a condition is overshadowed by the emphasis placed upon the German work ethic via the proverb, "Work is no disgrace." In what might be considered a rape of language, an innocuous proverb becomes a forceful propaganda tool, with which the Nazis portray the Jews as despising work and threatening to enslave hard-working Germans.
In each of the episodes following the discussion of the Talmud, there emerges a recurrent image of the morally decadent Jew attempting to take advantage of the morally upstanding German. The victims are often portrayed as defenseless young women, children, and animals. Several of the stories have a decidedly pornographic character as is blatantly obvious in their accompanying illustrations. This illustration is from the episode entitled, "What Hans and Else experienced with a stranger." The stranger is a Jewish man depicted as a child molester/kidnapper, and his intended victims, whom he is attempting to lure away with some candy, are innocent German children. The caption under the picture may be translated as "Here, little boy, you can have something real sweet. But then, you must both go with me..." The grotesque appearance of the man is typical for the portrayal of Jews throughout the book. The image of the Jew as an inhuman monster who victimizes helpless Germans is visually reinforced through the use of such grotesque images. The image of the Jewish monster perpetrating misfortune is presented at the end of each episode in the form of a short poem, which capsulizes the specific immoral act allegedly committed by a Jew, connects all Jews to the Devil, and serves to warn the reader against the ever-present Jewish threat. The episode about Hans and Else concludes with the following saying, which Hans' mother requires him to memorize:A devil goes through the land, It's the Jew, well-known to us as a murderer of peoples, a race defiler, a child's horror in all lands! Corrupting our youth stands him in good stead. He wants all peoples dead. Stay away from every Jew, and happiness will come to you! |
Serene Tan 3A
No comments:
Post a Comment