One-sheet poster for the film, “The Seventh Cross” (1944)

The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles. 

The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur. 

One-sheet poster for the film, “The Seventh Cross” (1944) 

Overall: Height: 41.250 inches (104.775 cm) | Width: 27.125 inches (68.898 cm) 

One-sheet poster for the film, “The Seventh Cross,” released in September1944. The film was based on a 1942 novel of the same name by German author, Anna Seghers, who fled from the Nazi authorities to Mexico. “The Seventh Cross” takes place in 1936, in Germany, when seven Jewish and political prisoners escape from a concentration camp. Six are caught, killed, and tied to makeshift crosses, but a seventh escapee manages to elude the soldiers. While seeking help, the protagonist comes across many ordinary Germans (many of whom were portrayed by real-life German refugees), who prove to have complex motivations. Rather than equating all Germans with Nazism, it creates sympathy for the ordinary people. Throughout the film, the voice-over narration from one of the killed escapees reflects the undocumented perspective of the victims in the historical record. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes. 

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Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown. 

One-sheet poster featuring a large, illustrated portrait in the center and a narrow, white border on all four sides. Filling the majority of the poster is a man’s face in left-facing, three-quarter profile overlaid on an olive-green background. Overlaying the image, in the top half of the poster, is the name of the principal actor and the film’s title, printed in blue, white, and yellow ink. Overlaying the man’s face, in the lower right corner, is a smaller-scale portrait of a woman with long, brown hair, depicted from the shoulders up. On the left side, advertising copy is printed in small, blue text. Spanning the bottom quarter of the poster, on a white background, are the principal cast members and film credits, printed in blue and black ink. Printing and copyright information is printed in black ink in the bottom margin. The poster was folded into eight sections. It is heavily creased along the folds, with small holes and tears along the creases. There are small tears along the edges, and pinholes in the corners. Depicted: Spencer Tracy as George Heisler, Signe Hasso as Toni back, upper left edge, stamped, purple ink : 28944