Overview
- Brief Narrative
- Poster created by Ben Shahn for the US Office of War Information as a response to the Nazi-led annihilation and destruction of communities throughout the Czech Republic, including Lidice. It also protests the retaliatory measures taken for the attempted assassination by Czech resistance members of Reinhard Heydrich, director of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, under the Nazi occupation.
- Artwork Title
- This is Nazi brutality
- Series Title
- Office of War Information poster, no. 11
- Date
-
commemoration:
1942
creation: 1942
- Geography
-
manufacture:
United States
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection
- Markings
- front, across center of image : This is Nazi Brutality... / RADIO BERLIN.-- / IT IS OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED:- / ALL MEN OF LIDICE - CZECHOSLOVAKIA - HAVE BEEN SHOT: / THE WOMEN DEPORTED TO A CONCENTRATION CAMP: / THE CHILDREN SENT TO APPROPRIATE CENTERS--/ THE NAME OF THE VILLAGE WAS IMMEDIATELY ABOLISHED. / 6/11/42115P.
- Contributor
-
Artist:
Ben Shahn
Distributor: United States Office of War Information
- Biography
-
Ben Shahn was born in Kovno,(Kaunus) Lithuania, on September 12, 1898. Shahn immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, in 1906. He first worked as a lithographer's apprentice until 1930 and was formally educated at NYU and the National Academy of Design in New York City. He was associated with the Social Realist movement and his work often joined striking visual images with compassionate and powerful political commentary. During World War II (1939-1945) he designed posters the Office of War Information. Shahn, age 71, died on March 14, 1969.
The United States Office of War Information (OWI) was created on June 13, 1942, to centralize and control the content and production of government information and propaganda about the war. It coordinated the release of war news for domestic use, and using posters along with radio broadcasts, worked to promote patriotism, warn about foreign spies, and recruit women into war work. The office also established an overseas branch, which launched a large-scale information and propaganda campaign abroad. The government appealed to the public through popular culture and more than a quarter of a billion dollars' worth of advertising was donated during the first three years of the National Defense Savings Program. Victory in Europe was declared on May 8, 1945, and in Japan on September 2, 1945. The OWI ceased operation in September.
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Classification
-
Posters
- Category
-
Anti-Nazi propaganda
- Object Type
-
Posters, American (lcsh)
- Physical Description
- Rectangular paper poster with an image of a man in a blue suit with a hood tied over his head. His clenched fists are chained to a red brick wall. Across his body is English text designed to look like the pasted strips from a telegram.
- Dimensions
- overall: Height: 37.760 inches (95.91 cm) | Width: 28.270 inches (71.806 cm)
- Materials
- overall : paper, ink
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- No restrictions on access
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The poster was acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995.
- Record last modified:
- 2022-07-28 18:25:57
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn33819
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Also in Poster collection
The collection consists of two posters: one is a French propaganda poster and the other is an anti-Nazi poster created by Ben Shahn protesting the decimation of Lidice, Czechoslovakia.
Date: 1941-1942
French propaganda poster
Object
Poster depicting a male worker and a female gardener against the backdrop of a map of France and a sun with the date "1941" printed inside. To the left are jackals or possibly wolves, each labeled with a different name, including "Juifs" and "DeGaulle", which are depicted as threatening the borders of France.