The Fruits of Hate: A French City During the Holocaust
2023-10-02 - 2023-11-30 | Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall, 300 Beechwood Avenue, Carnegie, PA, 15106, United States
Dr. David Rosenberg’s exhibit “The Fruits of Hate: A French City During the Holocaust” opened at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall on Monday, October 2, for its premiere exhibition at a public library in the United States. This international exhibit has been featured at the University of Pittsburgh, the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, Bower Hill Community Church, Temple Emanuel, and Duquesne University. It has also been shown in a French version at the University of Picardy and in several French high schools, and will be on display starting January 2024 at the Bibliothèque Louis Aragon public library in Amiens.
The exhibit delves into questions of official, cultural, and religious Jewish identity in the French city of Amiens from 1940-45. The use of identification cards, personal correspondence, photos, and audio recordings bring a compelling immediacy to the exhibit. Several of these elements have been added or expanded upon since this exhibit’s most recent showing. New translations of personal correspondence by Grove City College French students are also included. In a time of rising anti-Semitism, remembering and engaging with the atrocities of the Holocaust finds an increased urgency and importance.
“The Fruits of Hate” is open to the public during regular Library hours from October 2 through November 30.
Dr. David Rosenberg received a Ph.D. in European History from Yale University with a dissertation on the Protestant movement in Amiens in the 16th century. After a decades long engagement with that particular city and its history, Dr. Rosenberg embarked in 2011 on the study of the fate of its Jewish community especially during the Shoah. As a byproduct of his research, Rosenberg consulted with the Departmental Archives of the Somme to enrich their holdings and digital representation of Jewish- related materials. With daughter Lydia Rosenberg and Jared Miller, he created a website containing several hundred scans of original documents related to the Jews of the Somme during the Occupation with introductions in English (www.jewsofthesomme.com). In 2013 he was named a Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and he received the Medal of the City of Amiens in 2023 for his contributions to the history and memory of that region.
