"Juden Raus!" (Jews Out!) – Antisemitic Board Game, Nazi Germany, 1938 – Small-Scale Version with Advertising ...

"Juden Raus!" (Jews Out!) – Antisemitic Board Game, Nazi Germany, 1938 – Small-Scale Version with Advertising Leaflet, Distributed to Toy Stores

"Juden Raus!", antisemitic board game, made for children in Nazi Germany; small-scale format, including official promotional leaflet. Dresden: Günther & Co. (distributed by Rudolf Fabricius, Neusalza-Spremberg), [ca. 1938]. German.

Display model version of the board game "Juden Raus!", referred to as "History’s most infamous board game" (see below). Children were instructed to locate and round up Jews, gather them at transfer points, and have them deported from there. The game was created toward the end of 1938, roughly a month after Kristallnacht and not long before the outbreak of World War II and the onset of the Holocaust. It was begun as a private initiative, without the official sponsorship of the Nazi Party, and it succeeded in attracting only minimal public exposure; according to some estimations, it was never actually distributed in commercial quantities. The game was regarded as highly unusual among boxed board games circulated in Nazi Germany insofar as it imposed on children the task of rounding up Jews and having them deported by train, whereas most boxed games at the time dealt with educating youngsters regarding the history of the Nazi Party and the biographies of its leading personalities.

According to Andrew Morris-Friedman and Ulrich Schädler, only two copies of the full-size version of the board game are known to be extant, one belonging to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, and the other is found in the collection of the Institute of Contemporary History and the Wiener Library, London. To our knowledge, no other copies of the small-scale format version have survived.

The present version of the board game is identical in virtually every respect to the regular, original full-size version. At the center of the board is an illustration of a walled German city, encircled by six railway platforms. Inside the city itself is a main street, and along it thirteen circles marked in red to indicate Jewish shops and businesses. Each circle shows the façade of a shop or business, focusing on its Jewish name: "Cohen", "Stern", "Levin", "Gurstein", "David", etc. Next to the illustrations are rows of text in German rhyme; freely translated: "If you succeed in expelling six Jews, you are undoubtedly the winner!" / "Show your skill, gather up as many Jews as you can!" An illustration of an expelled Jewish family appears in the lower margin.

In addition to the game board, there is the original promotional leaflet bearing the name of the distributor, who appeals to storeowners, informing them of the existence of the new board game which, according to him, is turning out to be a "schlager" ("big hit") at the annual fairs of Leipzig, Vienna, and other such gatherings ("der Messeschlager von 1939/40"). Apparently, the game was never actually presented at any of the above fairs.

For additional reading, see:

• Andrew Morris-Friedman and Ulrich Schädler, ‘Juden Raus!’ (Jews Out!) – History’s most infamous board game, in: "Board Games Studies", Issue No. 6, 2003, pp. 47-58.

Game board: approx. 30.5X25 cm. Enclosed leaflet: approx. 21X15 cm. Good condition. Fold lines.

Provenance: Dr. Simon Cohen Collection.