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May 14, 2007
University Park, PA— "Roman Vishniac: Remember the Days of Old," on display June 1 through August 31, 2007, in the Diversity Reading Room, 109 Pattee Library, documents the lives of Jews early in the 20th century.
Born in 1897, Roman Vishniac traveled across central and eastern Europe, using his camera to document the lives of the Jews of Poland, Austria, Holland, France, Romania, and Czechoslovakia. By 1938, Vishniac began concentrating his attention on Jewish life in Eastern Europe, in the hope of focusing worldwide attention towards a community on the brink of destruction. In his photos, he gives a glimpse of the unique
world the Jews inhabited before the annihilation of more than a third of world Jewry.
The photographs are on loan from the Bernard Museum of Judaica at Congregation Emanu-El of the City of New York and presented by the Penn State Jewish Studies Program with additional support provided by the Daniel and Beatrice S. Walden Jewish Studies Program Fund.
The exhibition also includes materials from Penn State's Arts and Humanities Library, purchased through endowments that support Jewish Studies at Penn State. These include the Ash Family Libraries Endowment in Jewish Studies, the Zelma and Harris Freedman Library Acquisitions Endowment in Jewish Studies, the Harry and Tessie Goldberg and Morris Lillian Karasek Memorial Libraries Endowment in Jewish Studies, the Sidney Halpern Memorial Libraries Endowment, the Betty Hein Libraries Program Endowment in Jewish Studies, the Kirschner Family Libraries Endowment in Jewish Studies and Business, and the Mervin A. Snyder Memorial Libraries Endowment for Jewish Studies.
For more information, contact Daniel Mack, head librarian, Arts and Humanities Library, at 814-865-6779.
The photograph shown here was taken in Warsaw, Poland, in 1939. Sara, the girl in the picture, was confined to her bed all winter, as the basement her family lived in had no heat. The flowers on the wall behind her were painted by her father.
Editor's Contact:
Catherine Grigor, 814-863-4240