{"id":1300,"date":"2016-07-26T13:39:16","date_gmt":"2016-07-26T13:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjhblog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2016\/07\/26\/in-plain-sight-the-marvelous-unlikely-history-of\/"},"modified":"2016-07-26T13:39:16","modified_gmt":"2016-07-26T13:39:16","slug":"in-plain-sight-the-marvelous-unlikely-history-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2016\/07\/26\/in-plain-sight-the-marvelous-unlikely-history-of\/","title":{"rendered":"In Plain Sight: The Marvelous, Unlikely History of Bard Professor Justus Rosenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"

By James
\nBenjamin Nadel, Research Intern
<\/h2>\n

You might not expect a 95 year old literature professor to
\nemphasize youth when discussing his life. But that is exactly how Justus
\nRosenberg described his upcoming talk at the Center for Jewish History to me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will do it from the perspective of a teenager\u2026it is for
\nsomeone like you.\u201d <\/p>\n

Next Wednesday, Justus will be discussing his time living in
\nNazi-occupied France, when he was just 20, and his heroic efforts to help
\npeople escape the country. Joining him will be journalist Sarah Wildman, who
\nrecently wrote a
\nprofile<\/a> of Justus for The New York
\nTimes<\/i>. In addition to this conversation, I have curated an exhibit of
\nseveral documents and pictures from Justus\u2019 personal archive. Last Monday,
\nDavid Rosenberg, Senior Manager for Communications at the Center, and I visited
\nJustus at his house in upstate New York to retrieve and learn more about these
\npieces. <\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/figure>\n

Justus greeted us
\nwith a smile when we arrived. Despite his age, he still possesses the youthful
\nenergy that he wants to bring to his speech. This fall, he will start his 44th<\/sup>
\nyear of teaching literature at Bard College. He exercises at the gym three time
\na week. After some brief introductions, he led us into his living room, where
\nhe had set up two binders of material. <\/p>\n

From 1940-1941, Justus acted as a
\ncourier for the \u201cEmergency Rescue Committee,\u201d an extrajudicial organization spearheaded
\nby American journalist Varian Fry<\/a>
\nthat worked to get Jews and anti-Fascist intellectuals the papers that they
\nneeded to leave France. Justus sneaked falsified documents and messages from
\nFry\u2019s headquarters in Marseille to many people trying to escape through the
\ncity\u2019s sea port. The nature of these clandestine documents means that not many
\nsurvived the war. When I asked Justus if he could show us some of the materials
\nfrom his days working with Fry, he responded, \u201cWe had to destroy most of them.\u201d
\nMuch of what he showed us were photocopies of telegraphs and pictures that he
\nhad found in various archives. <\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/figure>\n

However, Justus did manage to preserve some original pieces,
\nmainly by sending them to friends in the United States during the war. These
\ninclude a series of pictures of Justus \u2013 looking debonair in a suit jacket and
\ntie walking down a street in Marseille; staring gallantly off into the distance
\nin a photo taken when he joined the French resistance; posing in a rowboat
\nalongside its owner, as he covertly looked for sea routes out of Marseille. In
\naddition to photographs, Justus was also able to hold on to some documentary
\nmaterials, including a letter that he pocketed from the famous French
\nsurrealist author Andr\u00e9 Gide. All of these items and more will be on display at
\nthe event this coming Wednesday. They will help illustrate certain moments of
\nJustus\u2019 life story.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/figure>\n

\u201cI will save my
\nstories for Wednesday,\u201d Justus said with excitement and anticipation in his
\nvoice, as we were leaving to catch our train. \u201cThe things I showed you today
\nmake the most sense, once you have heard the stories.\u201d I look forward to seeing Justus bring these pieces to life at Wednesday\u2019s
\nevent.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\nIn Plain Sight: The Marvelous, Unlikely History of Bard Professor Justus Rosenberg <\/p>\n

July 27, 2016 6:30PM<\/p>\n

\nTicket Info: $10; $5 Center for Jewish History\/partner members, seniors, students <\/p>\n

Presented by Center for Jewish History and Leo Baeck Institute <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Refugee, smuggler, resistant, intellectual. Even before the age of 21, Professor Justus Rosenberg had lived many lives. Sarah Wildman \u2014 author of a major profile of Professor Rosenberg for the New York Times and the celebrated memoir Paper Love \u2014 will speak to Rosenberg about his life and work.<\/p>\n

Professor
\n \u00a0Justus Rosenberg is believed the last living member of the \u00a0
\nAmerican-sponsored Emergency Rescue Committee (headed by Varian Fry). \u00a0
\nWorking out of Marseille, Fry’s gang smuggled anti-fascist \u00a0artists and
\nintellectuals out of occupied Europe. \u00a0Rosenberg himself was \u00a0a refugee,
\n born in 1921 in the Free City of Danzig. He was captured by \u00a0the
\nGestapo in a round-up of mostly foreign Jews in Grenoble but escaped
\nfrom a transit camp and joined the French \u00a0Resistance. In the last year
\nof the war, Rosenberg served the Americans \u00a0in reconnaissance and,
\npost-war, worked for UNWRA. <\/p>\n

Professor Rosenberg is a Professor
\nEmeritus of comparative literature at Bard College, where he still
\nteaches, and the head of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation.
\nJoin us to hear his story on this \u00a0special evening.<\/p>\n

A reception will follow the program.<\/p>\n

Click here to purchase tickets<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By James Benjamin Nadel, Research Intern You might not expect a 95 year old literature professor to emphasize youth when discussing his life. But that is exactly how Justus Rosenberg described his upcoming talk at the Center for Jewish History to me. \u201cI will do it from the perspective of a teenager\u2026it is for someone like you.\u201d Next Wednesday, Justus will be discussing his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[239,8,23,9,42,241,240,242,67],"class_list":["post-1300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-post","tag-events","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-jewish-history","tag-leo-baeck-institute","tag-new-york-times","tag-nyc-events","tag-public-programs","tag-research-intern"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}