Little Franz went searching for mushrooms in the woods with his mother. Franz, is usually a very quite boy, but today he seems to be transformed. He jumps over bushes and ditches and shouts with excitement.
His mother looks on with delight at the happiness of her son. But then she scolds him:
"What's going on Franz? I've already filled up my basket. And you haven't even found one mushroom yet. You've got to be more diligent and look at the ground, not at the sky."
That is how Mother reproached him.
Franz was taken aback.
"You are right, Mother. I've completely forgotten to search for mushrooms, it's so beautiful here in the woods. But from now on I'll work harder!"
A half-hour later, Franz returns to Mother triumphantly.
"Hurrah! Now I've got just as many mushrooms as you have, Mother. And a bit more quietly he adds: "I think, maybe, there are a few poisonous ones here too."
Mother smiles.
"That doesn't surprise me! But that's not too serious. We'll just find the poisonous ones and throw them away."
Franz takes a mushroom from his basket.
"Mother, this mushroom doesn't look right to me. It's poisonous for sure. Mother nods.
"You've got that right! That's a satan mushroom (boletus satanas). It is very poisonous. You can recognize it by its colour and its
disgusting smell."
Franz throws the mushroom to the ground and crushes it with his foot. Then he takes another mushroom from his basket. It is big, with a long, light gray stem and a bright red cap with many white spots.

"Mother, I don't trust this mushroom either. The colour is too gaudy. It must be poisonous too!"
"I'll go along with that. It is a fly algaric. Throw it away," Mother confirms.
Then Franz presents two other mushrooms from his basket. "But these two are not poisonous. I recognize them. This one is a cep mushroom and the other one is a champignon. You can eat these. They taste very good too."
Mother looks at the mushrooms very carefully.
"Correct! We're taking these two home."
And she places the two mushrooms in her basket.
"I've got another champignon" Franz calls out and takes another mushroom from his basket.
Mother is suddenly frightened.
"For God's sake, Franz! That's no champignon! That's a deadly amanita (knollenblaetterpiltz). It is the most dreadful poison mushroom of all! And it is doubly dangerous because it is so easy to mistake for a good one." Mother now takes Franz's basket and takes out the mushrooms one by one. "That is a chanterelle. It's good to eat, but that one's a sulfur cap (schwefelkopf). It is poisonous. Away with it. And that's a red cap. You can eat that. But this other one is a poisonous saffron milk cap. We mustn't take that home." That's how Mother taught her son about the different kinds of mushrooms.
Then they both took their baskets and slowly headed home.
Along the way, Mother said: "Look Franz, just as it is with mushrooms in the forest, so it is
with the people on this Earth. There are good mushrooms and there are good people. There are poisonous or bad mushrooms and there are bad people. And you have to watch out for these bad people just like you do for poisonous mushrooms. Do you understand that?"
"Yes, Mother, I understand," says Franz. "When you get involved with bad people, bad things can happen, just like when you eat a poison mushroom. It can kill you."
Mother asked another question: "And do you also know who these bad people, this poison mushroom of humanity is?"
Franz thumped his chest proudly.
(At this point, in the original book there is a full page picture: Mother is explaining to kneeling Franz, holding a poison mushroom. Caption reads: "Just as the poison mushroom is often very difficult to distinguish from the good mushrooms, so it often very difficult to recognize the Jews as swindlers and criminals."
Yes, Mother! I know that. It is the Jews. Our teacher has often explained that to us in school.
Mother laughed and patted Franz on the shoulder.
"My word, you are a very clever boy! But now pay close attention so you will understand what I'm going to tell you now. I'll repeat once again: there are good mushrooms and there are bad mushrooms. There are good people and there are bad people. The bad people are the
Jews. But it is often really hard to tell apart the bad people from the good ones."
" I can understand that," says Franz, "That is often just as hard as sorting out the poisonous mushrooms from the edible ones."
"Exactly," Mother praised him. And then she went on. She became very serious. "The Jews are bad people. They are like poison mushrooms. And just as it is often difficult to tell poison mushrooms from good ones, so it is often difficult to recognize Jews as swindlers and
criminals. Just as poison mushrooms appear in different forms, Jews also know how to hide themselves, to take on different disguises."
"What sort of different disguises do you mean?" asked little Franz.
Mother saw that her child had not fully understood. Patiently, she explained further.
"Well, listen carefully. There are, for example, the peddler Jew. With cloth and all sorts of other odds and ends, he goes from village to village. He claims his wares are the best and cheapest. In fact they are the worst and most expensive. He cannot be trusted!"
"Just like a poison mushroom. You cannot trust it either."
"And it's exactly the same with the cattle dealer Jews (), with the department store Jews, with the kosher butcher Jews, with the Jew
doctors, with the baptized Jews, and so on. No matter how they disguise themselves, even when they pretend to be friendly to us, and when they say a thousand times that they mean us well, we must not believe them. They are Jews and they remain Jews. They are poisonous for our people (Volk)."
"Just like the poison mushrooms," says Franz.
"Yes, my child! Just as a single poison mushroom can kill a whole family, so just one Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even a whole nation."
Franz understood his mother.
Mother, do all non-Jews know that the Jew is as dangerous as a poison mushroom?
Mother shook her head.
"Unfortunately not, my child. There are many millions of non-Jews who have not learned to recognize the Jews. And that is why we have to teach people and warn them about Jews. We have to warn our youth
about the Jews. Even our little boys and girls need to learn to recognize the Jews. They must discover that the Jew is the most dangerous poison mushroom that exists. Just as poison mushrooms shoot up out of the ground everywhere, the Jew can be found in all countries of the world. Just as poison mushrooms often cause the most terrible misfortunes, so too is the Jew the source of misery and poverty, of plague and death."