Antisemitic cloth mask, used in antisemitic carnivals held in various German cities after the Nazi rise to power. Germany, 1930s.
Depicting a Jew with prominent eyebrows, stubble beard, and sidelocks.
During the years of Nazi rule, popular carnivals were held in Germany (particularly in southern and western Germany). These carnivals featured parades of people in costumes and displays of an antisemitic nature. In these frameworks, Jews were depicted in exaggerated caricature form – with long noses, unkempt beards, traditional Eastern European attire or shabby suits – sometimes alongside moneybags or symbols of a “Jewish conspiracy.” In such processions, SA men forced Jews to carry antisemitic signs denigrating themselves, such as “A German does not buy from a Jew, ” as an act of public humiliation. At the 1934 carnival in Cologne, for example, Nazis paraded wearing costumes with long noses on their faces. Throughout the 1930s, the traditional “Eierbetteln” festival in the town of Leissling regularly featured antisemitic displays and signs denouncing Jews. Such performances also took place at carnivals in cities such as Cologne and Mainz, sometimes accompanied by parades of floats bearing giant effigies and demonic masks of Jews – part of the same visual manipulation that fostered hatred and justified the policy of persecution.
Size: 19×20 cm. On the right and left, strings for tying around the head. good condition.
