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Nazi's Ideal Aryan Baby
Was Actually Jewish
REBECCA SCHLAM LUTTO
Special to the Jewish News
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We are winning.
CANCER
SOCIETY .
n the Nazi Germany of
the 1930s, the media
ground out propaganda to
buttress Hitler's mad view
that the Germans were a
"master race." Yet a maga-
zine contest to pick the most
beautiful German baby as
an example of the Aryan
race selected a Jewish baby.
That Jewish baby not only
proved Hitler's racial
theories to be nonsense, but
she was brought safely out of
Europe before the Holocaust
and is now a scientist living
in Princeton, N.J., where she
is a senior examiner in
chemistry and biology with
the Educational Testing
Service.
Hessy Levinsons Taft was
8 months old and an excep-
tionally beautiful child
when her mother took her to
a prominent Berlin photog-
rapher who entered her
photograph in the "perfect
Aryan baby" contest.
Hessy Taft told her story
in the collection, Muted
Voices; Jewish Survivors of
Latvia Remember, edited by
Gertrude Schneider, and
also spoke from her home in
Princeton of her "cover girl"
picture in a pro-Nazi maga-
zine.
"One day the German
cleaning lady told my
mother, 'I saw Hessy's pic-
ture on a magazine in the
window of a stationery
shop,' " she writes. "My
mother didn't believe her
and told her she must be
wrong. Frau Klauke insisted
and asked for the 70 pfen-
nige to buy the magazine.
What Frau Klauke showed
my parents when she
returned triggered both
amazement and anxiety for
both of them."
Hessy's mother rushed to
the photographer's studio
and confronted him. "How
could you do this? You know
that this is a Jewish baby."
He replied that he did it
deliberately. "I wanted to
give myself the pleasure of
this joke and, you see, I was
right!"
Before this, Pauline
Levinsons had been pleased
when strangers admired her
baby on the streets of Berlin.
Now, afraid she would be
recognized, she kept the
child confined to their
Rebecca Schlarn Lutto is a
writer for the Jewish Standard
of Hackensack, N.J.
apartment, no longer allow-
ing her to crawl around in
the park or play in the sand-
box.
Both talented singers,
Jacob and Pauline Levin-
son had come from their na-
tive city, Libau, Latvia, to
study in Berlin. But shortly
after the birth of Hessy's
younger sister, they realized
that they must leave Ger-
many. They went back to
Latvia for a summer, and in
1938 left to live permanently
in Paris.
In Paris, a doctor noticed
Hessy's beauty. "Dr. Levy
became excited," she
said."He had some connec-
tions to editors of Paris Soir
"What Frau Klauke
showed my
parents triggered
amazement ."
who would be delighted to
publish any story capable of
dampening the growing en-
thusiasm of anti-Jewish
sympathizers in France. My
mother agreed; my father
resisted. History has, of
course, proved my father
right."
It was not long after Dr.
Levy had told Hessy's
parents, "You have no
reason to be fearful. You are
not in Germany anymore.
You are safe here," that the
family had to flee again.
Always carrying a copy of
the Nazi magazine with
them, they went to
Marseilles, in the unoc-
cupied zone of France, and
boarded a Portuguese ship
there that sailed to Lisbon,
Casablanca, Jamaica, and
finally Cuba, where Hessy
grew up.
How did the "cover girl"
story affect her life? "I grew
up knowing about it," she
said. "And close friends and
family knew. But as long as
my father was alive, we
never told the story publicly.
He was one of those people
who think Jews should not
seek the limelight. 'People
will hate you for it,' he
would say."
Hessy Taft went into
science and her husband is
American- born, but his
grandparents came from
Latvia. He teaches
mathematics at Rutgers.
Her sister, however, follow-
ed her parents into music,
studied piano at Julliard,
and is married to the well-
known concert pianist
Daniel Pollack. 0