The Blood Libel in Illustrated Books and Comics for Children in Twentieth-Century Spain

Abstract

This article explores the representation of the Antisemitic libel that Jews ritually murder Christian children in illustrated books and comics for children that were published in twentieth-century Spain. Focusing on the stories of Dominguito de Val and the Holy Child of La Guardia, it examines why both these two medieval ‘boy martyrs’ whom the Jews were accused of murdering became the subjects of literature for children in the twentieth century as well as the messages that these works wanted to inculcate in their young readers and what they reveal about the survival of this Antisemitic legend in Spanish society and culture. The stories of Dominguito and the Holy Child of La Guardia were frequently recast in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to fit into the more common Blood Libel narrative in which the Jews were accused of consuming Christian blood. Moreover, the Jews themselves were adapted to represent not only quintessential ‘others’ as opponents of Christianity but also opponents of ‘Hispanicity’ (<i>Hispanidad</i>) during the years of the Franco dictatorship.