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The postcard was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family.
Inscribed postcard of three pigs as the three Jews sitting on a bench stereotype
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Postcard with a handwritten message, mailed in Vienna in 1902, with a printed image of three clothed pigs seated on a bench. They have stereotypical Jewish features, including curled payot and protruding noses. In Jewish religious texts, pigs symbolize filth and abomination, and Judaism forbids the consumption of pork. The portrayal of the Jewish men as pigs was a deriding twist on the classic caricature of three Jews on a bench. This caricature in turn made a mockery of Jewish spa culture in the summers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The postcard is one of the more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic artifacts and visual materials.
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.
Postcard with a color illustration of three clothed pigs seated upright, side-by-side on a slatted wooden bench. They have curled payot, hooded eyes, protruding snouts, and cloven hoof hands. They wear overcoats, colorful vests, boots, distinctive hats, and are holding umbrellas. They are engaged in animated conversation, with the left and right pigs facing each other in profile and the center pig facing forward and leering. There is German text and handwriting on the front and back. On the back are two postmarks. Adhered to the upper right corner is a blue 5-heller postage stamp with a centered, side-profile bust image of Emperor Franz Joseph I. front, right, stamped, black ink : (…hard) Bodnar / Wien [(…hard) Bodnar / Vienna] front, along edges, handwritten, black ink : [illegible German writing] back, top center, handwritten, black ink : 393 back, center, handwritten, black ink : (Wolyeboren Hemn?) / Alfred Fey – Felber / in / Wien / IX. Harmoniegasse 8. back, left, stamped, black ink : WIEN 9/1 / 66 / BESTELLT / 13. 3. 02 / 1 – 2 ½ N back, upper right, stamped, black ink : 13. 3. / 18/1 WIEN 1 / 10 11
overall: Height: 3.625 inches (9.208 cm) | Width: 5.500 inches (13.97 cm)