Big brain move

Hessy Levinsons Taft   a Jewish Germanwho was featured as an infant in Nazi propaganda after her photo won a contest to find “the most beautiful Aryan baby” in 1935. Taft’s image was subsequently distributed widely by the Nazi party in a variety of materials, such as magazines and postcards, to promote Aryanism. Taft’s Ashkenazi Jewish parents, Jacob Levinsons and Pauline Levinsons (née Levine), were originally from Latvia and were unaware of their photographer’s decision to enter the photograph into the contest until learning that the photo of their daughter had been selected by Nazi Propaganda MinisterJoseph Goebbels as the winner.
Fearing that the Nazis would discover that their family was Jewish, Taft’s mother informed the photographer, named Hans Ballin, that they were Jewish. The photographer told her mother, Pauline, that he knew they were Jewish and deliberately entered Taft’s photograph into the contest because he “wanted to make the Nazis ridiculous”.