Inscribed postcard expressing contempt for Jews

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. 

The postcard was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2016 by the Katz Family. 

Inscribed postcard expressing contempt for Jews 

overall: Height: 3.500 inches (8.89 cm) | Width: 5.500 inches (13.97 cm) 

The text uses the name “Kleine Cohn” (sometimes “Kleinen Cohn” or “Kohn”) meaning Little Cohn, which was a pejorative term for Jews used in Germany around the turn of the twentieth century. The term is thought to have originated in an 1893 German military pamphlet. It was popularized after German humorist Guido Thielscher sang a satirical song about the character in 1902, and quickly became ubiquitous in Germany. The term, often accompanied by antisemitic images of Jews, was featured on postcards and other ephemera throughout the first decades of the twentieth century. This postcard is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials. 

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