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Jewish Calif. woman who was face of Nazi propaganda outlives the lie, dies at 91: ‘I feel a sense of revenge’

Hessy Taft poses holding a photograph of herself taken in 1935 by well-known German photographer Hans Ballin during an interview with Reuters July 9, 2014. For the German photographer who chose a picture of the Jewish child as the ideal Aryan for Nazi propagandists, it was a sly joke. For the child's family, it became a terrifying ordeal. Taft was 6 months old in 1935 when her portrait by Ballin was chosen by Nazis and reprinted on the cover of a family magazine, on postcards and on shop placards urging customers to "buy beautiful clothes for your beautiful baby." REUTERS/Mike Segar (UNITED STATES - Tags: SOCIETY POLITICS) Hessy Taft poses holding a photograph of herself taken in 1935 by well-known German photographer Hans Ballin during an interview with Reuters

Hessy Levinsons Taft, born in Berlin in 1934 to Latvian Jewish parents, was six months old when a German photographer, Hans Ballin, took her photo.

Ballin later entered her photo in a national contest led by the Nazi propaganda minister to find the ideal Aryan baby, without the family’s knowledge.

After Taft won, her image appeared on the cover of the Nazi magazine Sonne ins Haus. When Taft’s parents confronted Ballin, he told them he had “deliberately wanted to slip in the little Jewess” as a joke.

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In 2014, after donating a copy of Sonne ins Haus to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Taft told the organization, “I feel a sense of revenge, good revenge.”

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