Hessy Levinson's taffeta

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Hessy Levinson's Taffeta on the cover of Sun Into the House (1935)

Hessy Levinsons Taft (born May 17, 1934 in Berlin as Hessy Levinsons) is a chemist and retired chemistry professor. She lives in the USA . She became known to the general public in 2014 through a photo of her as a child from 1934.

Life

Taft's Jewish parents Jacob Levinsons (born July 7, 1903 in Ventspils , died January 1989 in New York ) and Pauline Levinsons, b. Levine (born on November 20, 1902 in Daugavpils , died on August 14, 1997 in New York) came to Berlin from Latvia in 1928 , because after studying classical music she had been engaged as a singer for six months there. Hessy Levinsons was born there.

In 1938, her father Jacob Levinsons was arrested by the Gestapo , but released again after a short time. In the same year, the family returned to Latvia, then settled in Paris and fled via Nice to Lisbon in 1941 , from where they could travel to Cuba in 1942 . In Cuba, Hessy and her sister Noemi attended a British school. In 1949 the family immigrated to the United States.

In New York, Hessy Levinsons graduated from Julia Richman High School and graduated from Barnard College with a degree in chemistry in 1955 . Afterwards she was a PhD student at Columbia University . There she met her husband, the mathematician Earl Taft. After getting married in 1957, the couple moved to New Jersey and her husband taught at Rutgers University . She herself taught her children at home. In order to continue working scientifically, she accepted a position at the Educational Testing Service in Princeton . There she was responsible for the exams. In 2000 the family moved back to New York. There Taft became a chemistry professor at St. John's University . She dealt with the sustainable use of water. She retired in 2016.

In 2014, Hessy Levinsons Taft presented a copy of the cover of the German family magazine Sonne ins Haus from 1935 to the Israeli memorial Yad Vashem with a photo of her as an infant. As she reported, the Berlin photographer Hans Ballin, who himself was of Jewish descent, took the picture in 1934 and submitted it to the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels without her parents' consent . It appeared on the front page of Sonne ins Haus , which was published by Kurt Herrmann , a staunch National Socialist and friend of Hermann Göring . Fearing that the Nazis might find out that her family was Jewish, the mother informed the photographer of this fact. The photographer is said to have replied that he consciously chose the photo of the child in order to make the Nazis look ridiculous. The picture was also used to illustrate a postcard.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Oral history interview with Hessy Levinson Taft . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . February 15, 1990. Archived from the original on August 31, 2015. Retrieved on August 31, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b c Civil status data accessed on ancestry.com on September 21, 2019
  3. ↑ Terrence McCoy: The 'perfect Aryan' child used in Nazi propaganda was actually Jewish . In: The Washington Post . July 7, 2014. Accessed August 31, 2015.
  4. ↑ a b The perfect Aryan was a Jew. In: israelnetz.com. August 29, 2019. Retrieved September 22, 2019 .
  5. ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Refugees: Hessy Levinsons Taft . Retrieved September 20, 2019
  6. ↑ a b Lauren K. Wolf: Hessy Taft. In: c & en. September 8, 2014, accessed September 22, 2019 .
  7. ^ A b Spiro D. Alexandratos, Naty Barak, Diana Bauer, F. Todd Davidson, Brian R. Gibney: Sustaining Water Resources: Environmental and Economic Impact . In: ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering . tape 7 , no. 3 , February 4, 2019, p. 2879-2888 , doi : 10.1021 / acssuschemeng.8b05859 .
  8. ^ A b Justin Huggler: Nazi 'perfect Aryan' poster child was Jewish . In: The Telegraph . July 1, 2014. Archived from the original on August 31, 2015. Retrieved on August 31, 2015.
  9. ^ Jewish Girl was "Poster Baby" in Nazi Propaganda , in: Blog Archive Yad Vashem, July 2, 2014
  10. ↑ Herrmann, Kurt. In: Historical Lexicon of the Principality of Liechtenstein online. October 22, 1945. Retrieved September 22, 2019 .
  11. ^ Henryk M. Broder: Diamonds for the Reichsmarschall . In: Der Spiegel . No. 8 , 1997 ( online - 17 February 1997 ).
  12. ↑ A birthday card featuring the picture of Hessy Levinsons, winner of the most beautiful Aryan baby contest, Photograph Number: 66659A , from USHMM (biographical information until 1949)
personal data
SURNAME Taft, Hessy Levinsons
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Levinsons, Hessy (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian-American chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 17, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin