Review: Can Posters Kill?

Can Posters Kill? Antisemitic Propaganda and World War II

by Jerry Faivish with Kathryn Cole

Second Story Press, 2025

Category: Young Adult

Reviewer: Emily Roth

 

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Can Posters Kill? Antisemitic Propaganda and World War II masterfully evaluates the danger of propaganda and how it was used during the Holocaust. In Faivish’s introduction, he explains why, as the child of two Holocaust survivors, he decided to begin collecting propaganda posters. Although the posters are painful to look at, Faivish feels that they should be viewed as a warning for the future.

This slim but powerful book examines thirty-eight posters created between 1933 and 1945, divided into sections before, during, and after WWII. It is well-organized and easy to read, with each two-page spread displaying a poster on the left and a paragraph of text explaining it on the right. Although a large percentage of these posters were created by Hitler’s Ministry of Propaganda, as the war went on and the reach of the Nazi party expanded, posters from countries other than Germany began to emerge as well. Many posters contain similar themes, depicting antisemitic tropes such as Jewish people controlling world economies, aligning themselves with communism, terrorizing non-Jews, and much more. However, the repetition is part of the point, as it took repetition of these horrifying messages to convince people they were true. Notably, the book also contains one example of an anti-Nazi poster created by the United States, which announces the massacre of Lidice in 1942 and condemns the Nazis for their war crimes.

Can Posters Kill? is necessary reading not only for Jewish people but for anyone who wants to understand how governments can convince people to fear and despise others, and to turn a blind eye when atrocities are committed. Faivish concludes the book with a beautiful message about the power of words for Jewish readers. As sages have described, “The power of evil speech is like a bag of feathers, dispersed in the wind, that is almost impossible to collect or correct.” Readers are reminded that the most impactful way to safeguard against evil is to recognize and call out moments of racism, intolerance, and stereotyping, rather than ignore them and hope that they will go away.

 

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Reviewer Emily Roth (she/her/hers) is a Teen Services librarian, avid reader, and lifelong Midwesterner. Her short fiction has been published by The Masters Review, Reflex Fiction, Exposition Review, and others. She lives in Chicago with her rescue dog, Obie.