the pleasure of a joke...

I read the story of Hessy Levinsons Taft a few days ago and it keeps coming back to mind. The innocent baby image prompted me to read through an article posted by The Washington Post.

What a precious baby girl, I thought. 

As I began reading the article I found that the photo had been submitted in 1934 to a Nazi-run magazine that was in search of the "perfect Aryan baby." It was one among dozens of photos submitted, and it was the one chosen.

(Over the years, the more I read and hear about the Holocaust, the more horror I feel about the sort of evil so many people were forced to endure.)

At first, I had a visceral reaction to the type of magazine is was. I felt sorrow for the evil that would be passed down to that precious child. As I continued on, though, I found out that the little girl in the photo was, in fact, Jewish! What?!

The true identity of the little baby girl was hidden for over fifty years until Hessy Levinsons Taft, herself, decided to share her story with the United States Holocaust Museum in 1990.

The article revealed that the photographer had been commissioned by Hessy's parents to take a picture of her. Shortly after he took the liberty of submitting the photo to the Nazi-run magazine even though he knew she was Jewish. Her parents knew nothing of the submission and, when confronted, the photographer told them...

"... I wanted to allow myself the pleasure of this joke. And you see, I was right. 

Of all the babies, they picked this baby as the perfect Aryan..."

... the pleasure of a joke... 

This is the part that my mind keeps coming back to. 

I understand that stories get distorted with time, but, even if partly true, that is some motive for placing the lives of already-targeted people in possible life-threatening jeopardy. 

The family ended up escaping Germany before harm came; nevertheless, I'm struck by the flippancy of the photographer. I imagine it would have taken a minimal amount of digging to find the true identity of the baby. Maybe that speaks to the blind hatred behind the magazine itself, having not sought out truth. Maybe it speaks to the blind drive to purport a hideous doctrine.

Either way, after having read the whole article, the photo now evokes maternal, protective gratitude that this child was kept from harm... even though so many others were not. 

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