Some Disturbing Propaganda.
I just finished reading Diane Ackerman’s The Zookeeper’s Wife that talks about a Polish couple who hides Jews in their Warsaw Zoo during the war. It’s non-fiction, and I’ll have a review up soon enough.
Tonight is the Ken Burns documentary–The War, which I plan on watching. Anyway, going back to the subject line, one of the things she spoke about in the book was an anti-Semitic children’s book called The Poison Mushroom. I remember seeing this book behind glass at the Holocaust Museum. The front image is that of a mushroom with a face on it with an overly large nose. In the book, the German children are all drawn cute and blond, while the Jews are ugly, have mean faces and huge noses.
If you click here, you can see the cover, as well as the insides. Keep in mind this is racist propaganda so it might upset you, but I still think it’s important to know about.
Some of the captions say things like, “Hunting mushrooms in a forest a mother tells her son Franz - “Among mushrooms, as with humans, one must be able to tell the good ones from poison ones, and it is also often difficult to recognize Jews as swindlers and criminals.”
” Seventh grade teacher Mr. Birkmann listens as the boys in his class explain how they recognize Jews. Little Karl Scholz says - “The Jewish nose bows near the end like the number six.”
“Observing the Jew Rosenfeld demanding money from farmer Heiner and his wife, little Paul in an adjacent field with his father cutting hay says- “When I have a farm no Jew will ever enter my house.”
It’s insane to think that children once read a book like this. There is also another book I found online called Trust No Fox on his Green Health or a Jew on his Oath. Click here to see that.
Here you can see an image of kids reading The Poison Mushroom, as well as another child holding the Trust No Fox book. In both books Jews are also depicted as liars and money-hungry.
Thoughts anyone? I think that propaganda as this can teach a lot about how these prejudices arise. Does anyone know of any others?
Disgusting alright. Shows you how they worked. The sad thing is, though, that it’s not entirely a thing of the past. Look at some of the schoolbooks and children’s books in, say, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
I’m always torn about spending attention to it / making it available to all to read or not. On the one hand I think yes - it’ll educate people and enable them to resist it / deal with anti-semitism - on the other hand I’m also typically Dutch: it’s so dangerous and hateful that it might be better to ban it completely.
For instance, it’s illegal in the Netherlands to print and sell Mein Kampf by Hitler. Some want to change that now, with the idea of education and information (and freedom of speech). They’re not anti-semites by any means.
I’m not so sure it’s a good idea. When people can sell it, others can buy it, who can then spread it. I don’t want to think about the possibility of neo-nazi groups printing / selling it and distributing in order to make ‘converts.’
I heard that in Germany it’s illegal to give the Hitler salute. Is this true for The Netherlands as well?
Yes.
Interesting. But The Netherlands were neutral in WWII though, like Switzerland, right? Is it illegal in other places in Europe or just Germany and The Netherlands?
lol yes we were neutral until the Germans invaded us and killed many Dutch.
Oh good point.
Michael is right, this is not a thing of the past. The most obvious example today is the indoctrination of Palestinian children, but this goes on in many places & groups. Hate is alive and well and bringing up the next generation all over the world.