Antisemitic Essays by German Students

Authors

Object ID

2021.1.39a-d

Object Name

Essays

Date

8-30-1935

Files

Content Warning

The Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection consists of images, documents, and artifacts related to the Holocaust. The collection contains materials that depict a number of topics that may be difficult for viewers to engage with, including: antisemitic descriptions, caricatures, and representation of Jewish people; Nazi imagery and ideology; descriptions and images of German ghettos; graphic images of the violence of the Holocaust; and the creation of the State of Israel. For more information, see our policy page.

Description

Four typewritten pages, each filled halfway with text and with the header “Aufsatz.”

Information Provided by Michael D. Bulmash:

These short paragraphs were written by German students in the late summer of 1935. It had been two years since Hitler and the Nazi party came to power in Germany, and the indoctrination of children and the citizens was well underway. These students were given a prompt by their teacher: “Why should we be warned about the Jews?” Of course, these paragraphs reflect little originality, which would have been discouraged in any case since the task was to mechanically regurgitate the antisemitic teachings from lectures and the abundant written material available. Some of the students reference Julius Streicher or his grotesque and pornographic Der Stürmer, doubtless taken with the cartoons and Streicher’s concrete depiction of Jews. They describe the typical Jew’s physical characteristics - swarthy, frizzy hair, flat feet, crooked nose, thick head - as though they were describing Streicher’s cartoon characters approaching them on Unter den Linden. So we know Jews fall short in comparison with the ideal Aryan type, but as bad as he looks on the outside he is worse on the inside. Jews want to take over the government, in which case there would be no work, they have bankrupted the factories in Germany, creating a state of unemployment; they sell cheap, “trashy” goods; they have incited the communists against the Germans; they are cowardly as well. Of course, the negative descriptions are unremitting. Evidence to the contrary is not adduced. Jews are referred to as enemies of the people - here again they channel Streicher - and what they have learned in the classroom. As one student concludes, the Jew is not one of us, and he should go back from whence he came.

Dimensions

11 1/2 x 8 1/4"

Keywords

Julius Streicher, Propaganda

Subcollection

Propaganda, Streicher

Recommended Citation

"Antisemitic Essays by German Students" (1935). Bulmash Family Holocaust Collection. 2021.1.39a-d.
https://digital.kenyon.edu/bulmash/1741