The voucher 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.
Voucher on rectangular paper in blue, yellow, and black ink. The face has the denomination 50 TOSTEDT in a rectangular panel in the center, with German text to the right and left. Above the panel is an illustration of a man with a loaded, covered, horse drawn wagon. On the left side is a signpost labelled Bremen, the date 1821, and a station with a tree; on the right is a signpost with Hamburg, 1927, H ST. and a set of train tracks; along the bottom is a locomotive engine pullings seven traincars, heading to the right. The back has panels on the left and right with the denomination 50 in a white square in each corner with German text and a large crow in the center. In the center panel is a silhouette of a large tree with one branch on each side; a portly man with a large, stereotypically Jewish nose is hanged on each branch. Hovering in the surrounding sky are several large black birds; in the left corner in the letter H. and in the right, ST. In the top center is a shield with a skull and crossbones, with a man in fur undergarments and a large club leaning on each side.
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overall: Height: 2.250 inches (5.715 cm) | Width: 4.000 inches (10.16 cm)
State of Beverungen, Germany, emergency currency voucher [tostedt] for 50 pfennings issued during the hyperinflation in the early 1920s. This note was a temporary issue, valid for one year. On the back is an image with two Jewish men in silhouette hanged from a tree and left for crows to eat. Germany experienced severe financial crises following World War I (1914-1918.) The war effort was supported by borrowed money and on money printed without the resources to support it. The new Weimar Republic now had to make large reparations payments to the victors. Inflation was unstoppable: in 1919, there were 47 marks to a dollar; in 1922, it went from 1000 to 7000; and then in 1923, from17,000 to 4,200,000,000,000. Right wing propaganda had scapegoated Jews for losing the war. Antisemitism traditionally surged during uncertain economic times, and now it was inflamed as many politicians and members of the public blamed the Jews for the financial crises. Widely circulated antisemitic slogans accused Jews of taking all the gold and money and leaving Germans Dreck. The bank note is one of more than 900 items in the Katz Ehrenthal Collection of antisemitic visual materials.
Bremen, emergency currency voucher, 50 pfennig, with anti-Jewish cartoon