The poster 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.
Poster printed on off-white paper and adhered to a larger sheet of paper and a white linen backing. In the left foreground, Jesus is clad only in a loincloth, hanging limply from a large, standing cross that is canted to the right. The cross has a broken top and arm. In the center of the image is a cityscape with debris shaded in black along the foreground, and a low line of buildings that appear to be on fire in the background. Looming over the entire scene from the upper right corner is the head and upper body of an oversized man. His torso is all black, and he has a pale face with dark hair. He has thick eyebrows, hooded eyes, a large nose, and slightly parted, fleshy lips displaying a toothy leer. The crucifixion imagery is depicted in white, while the rest of the image has dark and pale colors in muted shades. At the bottom of the poster, below the image, are two lines of white, Polish text against a black background and the publication year is in the bottom left corner. There are small tears along the edges.
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overall: Height: 38.625 inches (98.108 cm) | Width: 27.750 inches (70.485 cm) pictorial area: Height: 34.625 inches (87.948 cm) | Width: 23.250 inches (59.055 cm)
Polish poster advertising the antisemitic propaganda pamphlet, Śmiertelny wróg Chrześcijaństwa [Mortal Enemy of Christianity], written by Zbigniew Kowalewski in 1943. The image is based on an illustration by Philipp Rupprecht, which was published in the antisemitic German newspaper, Der Stürmer, in 1937. The poster has an image of a crucifix, in front of a background of buildings that appear to be on fire with a large image of a Jewish man looming over the scene. The man has a large nose and ears, hooded eyes, and fleshy lips; all stereotypical physical features commonly attributed to Jewish men. The crucifix is a reference to the deicide myth, which falsely blames and condemns Jews for the death of Jesus Christ, and for rejecting his teachings. The pamphlet’s cover is illustrated with the same image as the poster. The pamphlet details the alleged relationship between Jews and Christianity, and falsely claims that Jews spread ideas of world revolution. Both themes are displayed in the image; the crucifixion represents the adversarial relationship between Jews and Christianity, and the burning buildings represent revolution. Jewish conspiracies of world domination and revolution are longstanding antisemitic canards used by the Nazis and other groups to justify Jewish persecution. The pamphlet was part of a series of Nazi propaganda literature produced in German occupied Poland during World War II. This poster is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.
Mortal enemy of Christianity Poster with a Jewish man looming over a crucified Christ