The Jew Devourer

When I think of a racial image, the first thing that came to my mind was the Holocaust and how that in my opinion it is the greatest example in history of racial discrimination and inequality.

Going with that theme, I found the image above in a book of a history of the Holocaust. This image was taken during a parade in 1939, in view of all the public in Germany. In this image, German men were dressed up as Jews with large paper noses. That in itself gets to me-- how these men were making fun of Jews and their supposedly large noses that was supposed to represent the Jewish race. They were then feeding those “Jews” to the Jew Devourer, or Der Judenfresser in German. I don’t know the exact date of this picture(besides the year), but it was either before the war started or in the very early stages of the war. We know the killing and treatment of the Jews only got worse as the war advanced, so it really says something to me that this open display of provocation was present at this time.

I think this image is particularly sad because this was a display in a parade that many children were in attendance, which was teaching children it was okay to make fun of another race and to destroy them, as we all know the Germans did. Just the atmosphere they chose to present this was inappropriate.

When the Holocaust was happening, it was very common to see people get beat up in the street and for situations like this to happen, and so at that time, I think it was the norm to see such discrimination. Though we can be so disgusted of the happenings during the Holocaust, we forget that this happens in such smaller occurrences each and every day.