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Nazi's "Perfect Aryan Baby" Was Jewish

(Tablet) Robert Rockaway - On Jan. 24, 1935, the Nazi family magazine Sonne ins Haus published a front-page photograph of the winner of a competition for "the perfect Aryan child" - a beautiful 6-month-old baby girl named Hessy Levinsons. Unbeknownst to the judges, Hessy was Jewish. Her parents were unaware that Berlin photographer Hans Ballin, who had taken what they thought was a private family photo, had entered it in the photo contest. Ballin put Hessy's photograph along with nine others into an envelope and sent it to the office of the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, knowing full well that Hessy was Jewish. He deliberately entered Hessy's photograph into the contest because "I wanted to make the Nazis look foolish." Many years later, Hessy, whose family escaped to France and then to Cuba in 1942, was asked what she would say today to the photographer. "I would tell him, good for you for having the courage. I can laugh about it now, but if the Nazis had known who I really was, I wouldn't be alive."
2022-04-28 00:00:00
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