Dreyfus and Zola: A Moment in the Conscience of the World

This exhibition of the infamous case of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was wrongly convicted of treason by a French military court in 1894, examines the anti-semitism that fuelled the “Dreyfus Affair,” notably the venom of the Anti-Dreyfusard press.

The Press was the most important forum for the debate between the Dreyfusard and Anti-Dreyfusards camps, a debate that went beyond French borders to become one of the first modern international media events.

Emile Zola, the art critic who galvanized Dreyfusard support with his letter J’Accuse, published in L’Aurore, figures prominently in the press commentaries and caricatures that have been brought together in this exhibition chronicling the “Affair.”

The documents in the exhibition – letters, books, photographs, broadsides, newspapers, posters and periodicals – belong to the Beitler Family Foundation. The Foundation aims, with its collections, to involve the public in an examination of human rights to forge a more informed society.