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| Europe |
| The "perfect Aryan poster baby" was actually Jewish |
| 2019-11-30 |
| The cover of the January 1935 issue of “Sonne ins Haus” (“sun in the house”, a Nazi magazine for mothers) featured the winner of the “most beautiful Aryan baby” photo contest. There was only one problem with the undeniably beautiful baby Hessy Levinsons: she was Jewish. When her mother Pauline had taken Hessy to Hans Ballin’s photography studio for a baby portrait, the photographer had asked her if he could enter said portrait for the “most beautiful Aryan baby” contest. Pauline, flustered, felt obliged to inform the photographer that both parents were non-Aryan. The photographer’s answer: “I know. I want to make the Nazis look lächerlich” [ridiculous]. Recounting the story 80 years later, Hessy Levinsons Taft, now a chemistry professor emeritus at St. John’s University in New York, says she can laugh about it now, but realizes she might not have been alive today if the Nazis had known. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |