Help Czechoslovakia (1943), a relief appeal signed Pelc under a federal approval number

Help Czechoslovakia is a 1943 fundraising poster of United Czechoslovak Relief, a member agency of the National War Fund, approved by the President's War Relief Control Board as No. 565. A hooded woman and a child look upward in front of barbed-wire posts. The sheet is signed Pelc '43.

A woman, a child and the wire

Two faces turn upward. The archive describes a hooded woman holding a child, both looking up, with barbed-wire posts behind them. The text adds the appeal, the name of the agency, and the credentials it printed.

HELP

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

UNITED CZECHOSLOVAK RELIEF

APPROVED BY PRESIDENT'S

WAR RELIEF CONTROL BOARD

No. 565

MEMBER AGENCY OF THE

NATIONAL WAR FUND

[logo:] NATIONAL WAR FUND / THREE FRONTS ONE CAUSE

[signature:] Pelc '43

A fear appeal with one remedy

The archive tags fear appeal. The threat is staged rather than shown: the archive describes anxious faces and wire, and the text names no enemy. The remedy is a gift to one charity. The poster gives no figures and does not say what the money would buy or how it would reach Czechoslovakia. Its purpose field reads "Fundraise," and the audience is "Domestic public."

A private relief agency asking Americans to give for Czechoslovakia is about as voluntary as wartime persuasion gets. Nobody had to give, and the sheet does not shame anyone who did not.

Approved to ask

The credit lines say more about the government than the picture does. United Czechoslovak Relief prints its approval by the President's War Relief Control Board, with a number, and its membership in the National War Fund, whose logo reads "THREE FRONTS ONE CAUSE." The record lists the issuer type as "NGO." A private charity's appeal for a foreign cause thus carried a federal approval number on its face. The record does not say what that approval required or what happened to a relief group that lacked one. A reader who values free association can fairly note the number and ask.

The National Archives attributes the art to Antonin Pelc, and the sheet is signed Pelc '43. The archive's rights line says the item is held by NARA as unrestricted and hosted by owner decision, with no rights statement.

Other private appeals on this site include Russian War Relief's Write to Russia and the Red Cross 1943 War Fund's Now, as Never Before. The Roosevelt administration essay describes the government these private appeals worked beside.