To be Shot as Dangerous Enemies of the Third Reich. Ink & Blood. New York, 1943.
One of Arthur Szyk’s Most Famous and Widely Circulated Images Demonstrating the Plight of Jews during the Holocaust
SZYK, Arthur. To Be Shot As Dangerous Enemies of the Third Reich. Signed and Dated “Arthur Szyk, NY ‘(19)43.” Ink and pencil on paper. Sheet size: 7″ x 11″. Image size: 6″ x 9″. Remnants of adhesive present, mat burn, minor tear to top right expertly repaired, otherwise Very Good condition.
This is one of Szyk’s most powerful and widely viewed political images… that of the young Jewish children hauled before a powerful Nazi tribunal. Seated at a table are two high-ranking Nazis, one of whom is Heinrich Himmler, Hitler’s Minister of the Interior and the head of the Gestapo. He has before him, along with an ominous looking Luger, a broadside which he has just issued. “Verordnung Das ostgebiet must juden—rein sein! Himmler,” the broadside reads… “The Eastern region must be cleansed of the Jews”. Szyk brilliantly exploits the extreme absurdity — that this innocent doe-eyed boy and girl are “dangerous enemies of the Third Reich” and as such must be exterminated immediately.
The Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe utilized just the portion of the drawing featuring the children to be reproduced on stamps and posters in an effort to raise much needed funds and awareness from the people of America. While the unfolding news of the Holocaust was being buried on the back pages of American newspapers, images such as this were created to make it real. For many Americans, it was not until the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, which shocked the world, beginning in February of 1943 that the atrocities against Jews, both young and old, began to be believed.
Provenance: Mrs. Arthur Szyk Sale. Parke-Bernet Galleries, Inc. November 24, 1961, Lot 66. Isidore Lipschutz (friend of Szyk, Belgian Jew in the diamond business who lived also in New York, Paris and St. Moritz) to Dasha Rittenberg (Holocaust survivor in New York).
Exhibition History: A reproduction print was exhibited at the Spertus Museum exhibition “Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk”, 1998 and at the United States Holocaust Memoral Museum exhibition “The Art and Politics of Arthur Szyk”, 2002 as the location of the original artwork was unknown at the time]; Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 29 August 2008–4 January 2009.
Publishing History: PM Magazine December 14, 1943; front cover Save Human Lives. Show of Shows March 13, 1944. Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe — posters, stamps and ephemera; Ink and Blood, A Book of Drawings, New York: Heritage Press, 1946, plate LXX; Jewish Journal (Los Angeles) by Bea Stadtler (Cleveland), June 21, 1974, p. 16; Justice Illuminated: The Art of Arthur Szyk, Spertus Museum, Chicago, 1998, plate 55; Sodei, Rinjiro, Arthur Szyk: Indignant Jewish Illuminator [Text in Japanese], Tokyo, Japan, 2007, p. 140; Drawing Against National Socialism and Terror, Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, 2008, pp. 234-235; Artur Szyk: Dziedzictwo polsko-zydowskiego artysty [The Legacy of Polish-Jewish Artist], Krakow, Stradomskie Centrum Dialogu, 2011, p. 88; Newsletter, The Arthur Szyk Society, Burlingame, CA, March 2013, p. 4; on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
