The walking stick was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
The Katz Ehrenthal Collection is a collection of more than 900 objects depicting Jews and antisemitic and anti-Jewish propaganda from the medieval to the modern era, in Europe, Russia, and the United States. The collection was amassed by Peter Ehrenthal, a Romanian Holocaust survivor, to document the pervasive history of anti-Jewish hatred in Western art, politics and popular culture. It includes crude folk art as well as pieces created by Europe's finest craftsmen, prints and periodical illustrations, posters, paintings, decorative art, and toys and everyday household items decorated with depictions of stereotypical Jewish figures.
Lightweight, slender, golden brown stained, wooden walking stick with the knob handle crudely carved as an small, elongated, caricatured head of a Jewish man. On the top of the head, or knob, is a rounded, shallow kippah. It has large ears, long, ridged sidelocks, and a grooved, forked beard. The forehead and cheeks are grooved, with thick, dark stained, raised eyebrows over large, recessed eyes. The nose is large, ridged, and pointed. The mouth is very large and open, with a fleshy, protruding lower lip. The head juts out from the stick and the angle below the chin forms a finger grip. The stick extends from the back of the head into a slender, uneven shaft, slightly curved with a very worn, narrow heel. The bark and gnarls on the shaft have been smoothed but it retains the appearance of a stick. back of head, black marker : 55A
No restrictions on access
No restrictions on use
overall: Height: 30.125 inches (76.518 cm) | Width: 1.000 inches (2.54 cm) | Depth: 1.750 inches (4.445 cm)
Slender walking stick made from a single stick with a knob handle carved as a grotesque caricature of a Jewish man. European artisans commonly adorned everyday items such as ceramics, toys, and even walking sticks, with caricatures of Jewish faces. These walking sticks are examples of racial antisemitism becoming part of everyday life. This walking stick is one of the more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.
Walking stick with the crudely carved head of a Jewish man