Hessy Levinsons Taft

Hessy Levinsons Taft (born Hessy Lewinsohn; 17 May 1934 – 1 January 2026) was a German Jew who was featured as an infant in Nazi propaganda after her photo won a contest to find "the most beautiful Aryan baby" in 1935. Taft's image was subsequently distributed widely by the Nazi Party in a variety of materials, such as magazines and postcards, to promote Aryanism.

Photograph Hessy Lewinsohn was born in Berlin, Nazi Germany on 17 May 1934. Her Ashkenazi Jewish parents, Jacob Lewinsohn and Pauline Lewinsohn (née Levine), were opera singers In July 2014, Taft told the German-language newspaper Bild that "I can laugh about it now, but if the Nazis had known who I really was, I wouldn't be alive."

Later life and death In 1937, the family returned to Latvia, keeping the story of the photo a secret to protect themselves from retribution. As a graduate student in chemistry at Columbia University, she met her husband, mathematics instructor Earl Taft. She and her husband joined the faculty at Rutgers University, but she left academia to raise a family, later working on the AP Chemistry exam for the Educational Testing Service (ETS). in 2000. Her research in this later period of life focused on water sustainability. She retired in 2016.

Taft died at her home in San Francisco, on 1 January 2026, at the age of 91.