The Yellow Spot (1936): a documentary text about Nazi persecution of Jews for British and American Readers

This article explores the publication history of the first documentary text to be made about Jewish persecution under Nazism, and its reception by readers in Britain and the US. Exploring the production and reception history of this publication reveals that discursive norms about Jews and Jewishness restricted how Jewish persecution could be discussed at the time in both Britain and the USA during the 1930s and 40s, contributing to what Michael Fleming has called ‘an anti-Jewish discursive environment’. Alongside contemporary British and American Press reviews, my article draws on material from the Gollancz publishing archive in the Princeton University Library to illustrate the publication, translation, and reception of this important and historically overlooked text.