Anti-Jewish sign in Bavaria

An anti-Jewish sign posted on a street in Bavaria reads "Jews are not wanted here." Julien Bryan took this photograph while visiting Germany in 1937. Back in the United States, Bryan regularly gave lectures with accompanying motion pictures to convey the looming dangers he foresaw in Europe.

During one of these presentations in 1938, he said: "And then a sign like this. Along the Rhine you see these signs against the Jew everywhere, … all through central and southern Germany, saying simply and uniformly the same thing. Jews are not wanted here…. Out of my own curiosity because I am a reporter who is anxious to get both sides of the story – I talked further with these peasants and in a number of cases I asked the German people along the Rhine … how come these signs? Who put them up? They rather laughed about it all and not too pleasantly, and they denied having anything to do with it..."

Citizens would have viewed this sign in public every day. Think about which municipal officials might have had to approve the content of the sign and its display in a public area. Who might have created it and decided where to hang it? What does this indicate about the involvement of citizens and officials in public discrimination?