A Contemporary Israeli Map of the Last Stages of World War II.
Color-printed newspaper map of Europe, entirely in Hebrew, published in the October 8, 1944 issue of Yedioth Ahronoth (ידיעות אחרונות).
This issue of the paper focuses on Allied offensives on Germany's eastern and western borders. The headline story celebrates the beginning of "Stalin's autumn offensive" (סטאלין פתח באופנסיבת הסתיו), what would become the East Prussian offensive ("3 מיליון רוסים נכנסו להסתערות מפרוסיה המזרחית עד לגבול ויוין באופנסיבת") with 3 million Russians entering the assault from East Prussia to Vienna. Another story reports on the Battle of Aachen (where Allied troops were engaged in a bloody month-long attempt to capture the important entry point to the Ruhr Basin).
The paper remarks on the death of Prince Gustav of Denmark, which is said to have happened under mysterious circumstances.
The key in the lower right of the map focuses on changes to the Polish border in the decades preceding World War II. An arrow below the map points to the southeast "1800km to Israel".
The map is an important piece of Second World War cartographic ephemera, reflecting an underrepresented and very important perspective on the War.
Yedioth Ahronoth (ידיעות אחרונות) was founded in Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine, in 1939. Its name translates literally as "Latest News." The newspaper emulated the format of the London Evening Standard, and published its Hebrew-language daily through the Second World War and Israeli War of Independence. It continues today and is considered a moderately conservative paper.