The ‘perfect Aryan’ child
完美的雅利安宝宝
The newlyweds came to Berlin as students, a pair of Latvian Jews who wanted to make it big in singing. In 1934, just after Adolf Hitler took control of Germany, the young Jewish woman became pregnant with a child who would soon become known as the “perfect Aryan.”
这对新婚夫妇是作为学生来到柏林的，他们是拉脱维亚的犹太人，想要通过唱歌出名。1934年，就在阿道夫·希特勒控制德国之后，这位年轻的犹太妇女怀上了一个孩子，这个孩子很快就被称为“完美的雅利安宝宝”。
The photo was everywhere. It first adorned a Nazi magazine that held a beauty contest to find “the perfect Aryan” and then was later splashed across postcards and storefronts.
Less well known, however, was the fact that the “Aryan” girl was actually Jewish.
照片红遍大街小巷。它先是上了一本纳粹杂志的封面，该杂志举办了一场“选美”比赛，以寻找“完美的雅利安宝宝”，然后它就在明信片和店面广为流传。
然而，鲜为人知的是，这个“雅利安”女孩实际上是犹太人。
The girl, now 80, is Hessy Levinsons Taft, and she recently presented the magazine cover, emblazoned with her baby photo, to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Israel and offered her tale to the German newspaper Bild.
But the extended version of what happened is found in an oral history she gave to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1990.
那个女孩，现年80岁，名叫赫西·莱文森斯·塔夫特，她最近向以色列大屠杀纪念馆展示了印有她婴儿照片的杂志封面，并向德国报纸《图片报》讲述了自己的故事。但是，1990年她给美国大屠杀纪念馆的口述历史中曾讲述了所发生事情的详细版本。
It begins in 1928, when her parents came to Berlin. Her father, Jacob Levinsons, crooned in a chocolate-smooth baritone. His wife, Pauline Levinsons, had studied at the renowned Riga Conservatory in Latvia.
故事开始于1928年，她的父母来到柏林。她的父亲雅各布·莱文森斯用巧克力般柔滑的男中音低声吟唱。他的妻子宝琳·莱文森斯曾就读于拉脱维亚著名的里加音乐学院。
Jacob had accepted a position at a local opera house and taken the stage name of Yasha Lenssen, his daughter told the Holocaust Museum.
It was the time of surging anti-Semitism in Berlin, and when “they found out that his name really was Levinsons,” she said, “they decided to cancel his contract.”
雅各布的女儿告诉大屠杀纪念馆，雅各布接受了当地一家歌剧院的工作，艺名是亚莎·伦森。那是柏林反犹太主义情绪高涨的时期，“他们发现他的真名是莱文森斯，”她说，“他们决定取消他的合同。”
“Without any money” and living in a “very, very cramped one-room” apartment, the Levinsons welcomed the birth of Hessy on May 17, 1934.
Hessy Levinsons told the museum that when she was 6 months old, “my mother took me to a photographer. One of the best in Berlin! And he did — he made a very beautiful picture.”
1934年5月17日，“身无分文”的莱文森斯一家住在一间“非常、非常狭小的单间”公寓里，迎接了赫西的出生。赫西·莱文森斯告诉大屠杀纪念馆，当她6个月大的时候，“我妈妈带我去找了柏林最好的摄影师之一！他做到了——他拍了一张非常漂亮的照片。”
They liked it so much that they framed it. They had thought the picture was a private family photo. But soon after, a woman who helped clean the apartment arrived to deliver some surprising news.
“You know,” the woman said, “I saw Hessy on a magazine cover in town.”
他们非常喜欢它，于是把它装裱起来。他们原以为这是一张私人全家福。但不久之后，一位帮忙打扫公寓的妇女来了，带来了一些令人惊讶的消息。
“你们知道吧，”女人说，“我在镇上的一本杂志封面上看到了赫西。”
The parents were terrified. Why was their Jewish infant on the cover of a Nazi magazine lauding Hitler’s exploits?
They contacted the photographer, according to Hessy’s account. “What is this?” the daughter says her mother asked. “How did this happen?”
父母吓坏了。为什么他们的犹太宝宝会出现在纳粹杂志的封面上，赞美希特勒的功绩?
根据赫西的描述，他们联系了摄影师。“这是什么? ” 女儿说是她妈妈问的。 “这是怎么发生的? ”
The photographer told her he was asked “to submit my 10 best pictures for a beauty contest run by the Nazis. So were 9 other outstanding photographers in Germany. So 10 photographers submitted their 10 best pictures. And I sent in your baby’s picture.”
摄影师告诉她，他被要求“把最好的10张照片提交给纳粹举办的选美比赛。德国其他9位杰出的摄影师也是如此。 因此，10位摄影师提交了他们每人最好的10张照片。 我把你孩子的照片发过去了。”
“But you knew that this is a Jewish child!” the mother exclaimed.
“但你知道这是个犹太孩子!”母亲惊叫道。
“I can laugh about it now,” Britain’s Telegraph newspaper quotes Taft, now a chemistry professor at St. John’s University in New York, as saying. “But if the Nazis had known who I really was, I wouldn’t be alive.”
英国《每日电讯报》援引现在是纽约圣约翰大学化学教授的塔夫特的话说: “我现在可以一笑置之了。” “但如果纳粹知道我的真实身份，我就不会活着了。”
扩展资料：
赫西一夜之间的成名，对于赫西父母来说，意味着突如其来的恐惧。他们害怕带着女儿外出时会被人认出来，进而知道她是犹太人，只好让她每天待在家里。
彼时犹太人在德国处于水深火热之中。在数次迁徙逃亡之后，1949年，赫西与家人终于如愿来到美国。不过，即便安全到达美国，父亲也不让家人讨论婴儿照的事情。他说：“犹太人就要低调点儿。”
直到1987年，赫西为一本关于犹太人大屠杀幸存者的书籍写下自己的过往时，才公开这段故事。“有人曾问我，是否对那位摄影师的行为感到愤怒。答案恰恰相反。感谢他以这种方式揭露纳粹主义者的愚蠢。从我自己来说，能为此哪怕出一点儿力，都很开心。”