"... a distinction complicated by the fact that she was Jewish and had been exploited as part of a dangerous hoax, died on Jan. 1 at her home in San Francisco. She was 91.... As Latvians, her parents were protected from laws targeting Jews of German descent. Still, they were terrified that the Nazis would discover what had happened and execute them. They kept Hessy inside, rarely taking her out, even for walks...."
From "Hessy Levinsons Taft, Jewish Baby on Cover of Nazi Magazine, Dies at 91/Without her parents’ knowledge, her portrait was entered as a prank in a contest in 1935 to represent the ideal Aryan infant — and she won" (NYT).

22 comments:
Anne Prank ?
It seems wild to me that the magazine running the contest would not be curious about the winner. No follow up interview to see if the perfect Aryan baby belonged to the perfect Aryan family?
The ashkenazi's who lived in Europe for centuries are not purely Semitic. It can be difficult to tell the players apart without a scorecard.
Billy Joel had a song about this... women can be tricky, always.
"It seems wild to me that the magazine running the contest would not be curious about the winner."
I'm skeptical. It's a good story, but if the Nazis defined the Aryan ideal as having blond hair and blue eyes, why did they pick a baby with dark hair and eyes. She was a very cute baby. Could it be that the Nazis were more interested in cuteness?
Plenty of Scandinavians have dark hair and brown eyes. The Vikings didn't discriminate on the race of the strange that they ended up kidnapping and making babies with.
I remember seeing a show about this on one of the cable military channels.
She identified as a socialist. #NoJudgment #NoLabels #Whatever
Blonde hair isn't uncommon in Lithuanian/Latvian Jews. In any case how much hair of any color do babies have?
Still, this may be one of those stories that is too good (for want of a better word) to be true.
The bonnet detracts from the baby.
Film Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski, hauntingly beautiful and heartbreaking.
Big bright eyes, chubby cheeks, pouty mouth -- very cute.
Speaking of famous babies, the identity of the Gerber baby was also kept a secret for forty years and also was chosen in a contest. The artist didn't expect to win so submitted a sketch and wouldn't you know, that's the one Gerber chose.
Isnt that john morgan, of morgan and morgan
Old joke, the "-owitz" is silent.
“It can be difficult to tell the players apart without a scorecard.”
Yes, you people had a difficult time rounding them up for the trains.
The original Aryan was Persian, the swastika was culturally appropriated from Indians, Diversity was an inspiration for secular class-disordered belliefs, and Dreams of Herr Mengele shared with pride and prejudice, ethnic Springs, too.
The US Holocaust Museum has an oral history interview with her. She describes her parents life and how they left Germany and how she ended up in America.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn504720
Could it be that the Nazis were more interested in cuteness?
Maybe the victors write the history books. To THEIR liking.
Good grief, the Nazis again. Next up Mao read Jane Austin.
So baby Taft. President Taft’s son sponsored the Taft Hartley act. It’s a small world.
I lived with a German family in 1973. My ‘mother’ had a classic blue-eyed blond sister, whose head/face measurements were taken in front of the class in 1937 by an expert Judenschauer using science to determine genetic origin. Frau M remembered the irony that her sister proved to measure either as Slavic or Jewish, I don’t recall which.
Wandering among the medical library shelves a few years later, I ran across the Zeitschrift für Whatever published 1935-1939 (ended because the paper was needed for the war effort) which had the lines, angles, and other measures laid out.
Folly both great and small.
Great stories, WWPaulKlee. Nazi 'racial science' might as well have been Phrenology.
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.