Oldal 35 [35]
Constructing Images of the Other in Peace and War
Jude of Figure 6, the eternal Jew, the enemy within. Ihe images are the pictorial
expression of a worldview out of touch with reality in which the Jew is shown as
a super-Other, an utterly evil, all powerful Other, an Other who manipulates all
lesser Others; the latter are shown as mere agents of the Jew or the body parts of
a composite Jewish-controlled monster. Ihe Jew of this insane anti-Semitic fantasy
is the ultimate in otherness.
The Jews are thus consistently represented during the war as the most sinis¬
ter, enveloping, manipulating, insinuating and utterly inhuman of creatures— as
snakes, spiders, octopuses, sharks, the many-headed hydra, always identified by the
stereotypical Jewish" nose and beard and side-curls (peyes) and labelled with the
six-pronged Star of David. In Figure 7 from 1942 a gallant, naked, muscle-bound
Croatian Laocoon defends himself with shield and sword against an entangling
Jewish serpent that has wrapped its scaly tail is around his exiguous private parts.
During WWII Croatians led by Ante Pavelic and Stane Kukavica, a Franciscan
friar on horseback, not only helped the Nazis with the Holocaust but spontan¬
eously carried out many murders of Jews on their own account.
There are other examples of the use of images of repulsive animals to depict an
enemy in wartime (Bryant 2005: 91; Koch 1997: 47; Darracott & Loftus 1972b:
39) but what is particularly striking in the case of the Jews is the continued and
continuous use of such images to depict them also in peace time (Aulich 2007:
145; Hate and Propaganda 1993). Typically, the most highly prejudiced visual
images of another group are usually limited to wartime or a state of acute conflict,
conflicts about a clear objective such as territory or sovereignty. The conflicts may
be deplorable and destructive but there is a degree of rationality to them. The
enemy may even be seen as a gallant or honourable opponent. When the war or
the conflict ends, hostile images recede and soften and may even become benignly
humorous (Larry 1995; Stubble 1987).
Anti-Semitism Outside War: A Paranoid Prejudice
Anti-Semitism is utterly different from the general run of prejudices against or
dislikes of outsiders and minorities which are most likely limited in their scope
and intensity and do not even persist over time but wane when conflicts do. Anti¬
Semitism embodies an irrational, almost crackpot, enmity that is present in peace
and war alike. It is paranoid and ascribes to the Jews actions that are not merely
untrue but impossible. It is a prejudiced antipathy; more lasting, more pervasive,
more intense and in consequence qualitatively worse than anything derived from
Europe’s other animosities (Brustein 2003; Carmichael 1992). It embodies a dark
night different from all other nights. The images of the snake, octopus and spider
signify the Jews’ omnipresent influence and power rooted in a permanent con¬
spiracy. The Bolshevist and the banker are as one, mere servants of the Jews if not
Jews themselves. For all anti-Semites alike whether Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran
(Hsia 1987), Roman Catholic (Kerzer 2001), Nazi (Graml 1992; Reitlinger 1968),
33