Nazi 'poster baby' turns out to be Jewish
A picture taken on July 8, 2014, shows the front page of the original issue of the Nazi family magazine Sonnie ins Hous (Sun in the House) showing baby Hessy Taft as the ideal German Aryan baby part of Nazi propaganda of Joseph Goebbels. Hessy Taft (nee Levinson) was born in Berlin in 1934 to Jewish parents Jacob and Polin Levinson, who were originally from Latvia and later immigrated to Germany. The irony is that a Jewish baby had won a Nazi propaganda contest designed to showcase the ideal Aryan child. AFP/PHOTO
What you need to know:
- The mother of Hessy Taft, born in Berlin in 1934 of Jewish parents, took her baby at six months to a professional photographer for a portrait.
- It had been entered into a competition organised by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to find "the most beautiful German Aryan baby".
JERUSALEM,
A US Jewish woman has presented the Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust with a magazine cover of her as a baby that the Nazis had used as an Aryan poster child.
The mother of Hessy Taft, born in Berlin in 1934 of Jewish parents, took her baby at six months to a professional photographer for a portrait.
To their surprise, the photo turned up seven months later on the front page of weekly magazine Sonne ins Haus (Sun in House) aimed at German families.
It had been entered into a competition organised by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to find "the most beautiful German Aryan baby."
Taft and her family fled Nazi persecution of the Jews in 1938 and she finally settled in the United States after World War II.
