---
title: Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether rationing is too great a "sacrifice"
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ask-the-women-and-children-whom-hitler-is-starving-1942/
description: Crayon-style drawing in brown of gaunt, hollow-eyed children holding up empty bowls, with a headline asking readers to put the question of rationing
section: Collection
---

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[![Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether rationing is too great a "sacrifice", 1942 US poster: Crayon-style](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ask-the-women-and-children-whom-hitler-is-starving-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ask-the-women-and-children-whom-hitler-is-starving-1942.jpg)

# Ask the women and children whom Hitler is starving whether rationing is too great a "sacrifice"

Crayon-style drawing in brown of gaunt, hollow-eyed children holding up empty bowls, with a headline asking readers to put the question of rationing to the women and children Hitler is starving. The image of hunger is set against American rationing to make it look small by comparison; the drawing is attributed by its signature to an artist outside the poster's issuer.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Ask the women and children
whom Hitler is starving whether
rationing is too great a "sacrifice"
[signature: Kollwitz (handwritten, partly legible)]
[imprint: U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1942—O—494616]
[imprint: OWI Poster No. 18. Additional copies may be obtained upon request from the Division of Public Inquiries, Office of War Information, Washington, D. C.]
```

[← Arms and the women help with defense](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/arms-and-the-women-help-with-defense-1942/) [Attack Attack Attack - Buy War Bonds →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/attack-attack-attack-buy-war-bonds-1942/)

## More propaganda examples that use the same techniques

- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)