Hessy Levinsons Taft, who as an infant appeared on the cover of a Nazi magazine in Germany promoting her as the ideal Aryan baby, a distinction complicated by the fact that she was Jewish and had been exploited as part of a dangerous hoax, died on Jan. 1 at her home in San Francisco...

Her death was confirmed by her family.

Terrifying at first, the story eventually became a source of pride for Mrs. Taft and her parents for the way it neatly illustrated the absurd pseudoscience underlying Adolf Hitler’s racial ideology.

https://archive.ph/3TpVS

How bizarre.

Hessy has black hair in that magazine cover photo. Hardly Aryan in appearance.

I shall do some research.

Wonderful that she survived that and became a San Franciscan.

It's curious to me though that they didn't choose a blonde baby if they were going for ideal Aryan Nazi,

Even a Jewish blonde baby.

Yes, not particularly uncommon.

14 minutes ago, KhunHeineken said:

How bizarre.

Hessy has black hair in that magazine cover photo. Hardly Aryan in appearance.

I shall do some research.

From AI:

1. The Photographic Technology (Film Type)

In the 1930s, photographers were transitioning between two types of black-and-white film:

• Orthochromatic Film: This older style of film was sensitive to blue and green light but almost completely "blind" to red and yellow tones. Because blonde hair has yellow/golden undertones, this film would often underexpose those colors, making them appear much darker—even black—in the final print.

• Lighting and Exposure: Even with newer Panchromatic film (which "saw" all colors), studio lighting at the time often used heavy shadows to create depth. If a baby had "strawberry blonde" or "honey blonde" hair, the warm tones would lack the "brightness" needed to look white on film unless the hair was platinum or white-blonde.

2 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

From AI:

1. The Photographic Technology (Film Type)

In the 1930s, photographers were transitioning between two types of black-and-white film:

• Orthochromatic Film: This older style of film was sensitive to blue and green light but almost completely "blind" to red and yellow tones. Because blonde hair has yellow/golden undertones, this film would often underexpose those colors, making them appear much darker—even black—in the final print.

• Lighting and Exposure: Even with newer Panchromatic film (which "saw" all colors), studio lighting at the time often used heavy shadows to create depth. If a baby had "strawberry blonde" or "honey blonde" hair, the warm tones would lack the "brightness" needed to look white on film unless the hair was platinum or white-blonde.

Interesting.