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David L. Rosenberg (MLS ’89), a French historian and retired labor collections archivist at Hillman Library, has a new installation on display at the ground floor entrance of the library, chronicling the experience of French Jews in Amiens during the Holocaust. The exhibit, called “Who is a Jew?” features photographs and text. It ran at Temple Emmanuel of the South Hills in 2018 and more recently at the Holocaust Center of 51��Ʒ��Ƶsburgh.

Rosenberg said his 20 years working in the 51��Ʒ��Ƶ archives helped shape his approach to this “retirement project,” as he called it, which “has been very gratifying.”

“Personalizing and humanizing the lives of otherwise obscure or un-remembered people was an orientation and a practice I continued to hone while working at 51��Ʒ��Ƶ’s ,” he explained, which included chronicling the photo ID cards of about 10,000 World War II-era steelworkers at U.S. Steel’s National Works in McKeesport, as part of the 51��Ʒ��Ƶsburgh and Western Pennsylvania .

After Rosenberg was gifted a book on the history of the French city of Amiens which cited his 1974 dissertation from Yale, his interest in the experience of French Jews was reignited. “I’m very interested in not privileging certain stories over others,” he said.

In October of 2017, this work led Amiens city officials to install a plaque at the site of the war-era synagogue, acknowledging what had happened there. Rosenberg was also named knight of the order of arts and letters by the French culture ministry.

The exhibit is open to the public and will be displayed at Hillman Library through August 30.