‘Jews Out’: Nazi board game for kids to be exhibited on Holocaust Remembrance Day

A sick antisemitic board game for children, created in Nazi Germany in 1938, will be exhibited on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day at Tel Aviv University.

The board game, intended for children, tasks each player with collecting hats from Jewish residential and commercial areas in the city, and bringing them to one of the roundup spots. Whoever brings the hats first wins the game.

One of the captions on the board reads: “Go to Palestine” (Auf nach Palästina!). The board game “Jews Out” was manufactured by a company called Guenther and Co. and distributed by a food merchant named Rudolf Fabricius.

“Jews Out! is clearly the outcome of years of blatant incitement and antisemitism which prevailed in German society in the 1930’s – so much so that someone got the idea that driving out the Jews was a suitable theme for a children’s game,” said Prof. Emeritus José Brunner, the Academic Director and Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Wiener Library.

“However, the game was considered an exception even at the time. Most children played games that taught them the story of the Nazi party, when it was established and how it had developed, while this game expressly teaches children to deport Jews,” he added.

Prof. Brunner added that the game was not well-received by the Nazi regime. The SS weekly Das Schwarze Korps published an article on
December 29, 1938, criticising the game.

The argument was that the game disrespected the German policy of cleansing Germany of Jews, which was a methodical, thoroughly considered plan and not a game of chance, as the game depicted it as.

The game was also not welcomed by the German public, and
sales were quite low.

“In the 1930’s, children in German schools and preschools, who received their education from the Nazi party, played many games that encouraged them to identify with the party’s institutions,” Prof. Dina Porat from the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University said.

“The game on display at the exhibition should be seen in the overall context of study materials in Nazi schools and preschools, such as a special edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion for children, or the scary children’s book Poisonous Mushroom. During WWII and the Holocaust, those who had received such an education from an early age could be clearly distinguished from older generations educated in a different Germany,” she added.

The game will be exhibited on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at Tel Aviv University’s Wiener Library for the Study of the Nazi Era and the Holocaust.