'IN PLAIN SIGHT' to Explore Justus Rosenberg at the Center for Jewish History

In Plain Sight: The Marvelous, Unlikely History of Bard Professor Justus Rosenberg, presented by the Center for Jewish History and the Leo Baeck Institute, is slated for Wednesday, July 27 at 6:30 p.m.

Refugee, smuggler, resistant, intellectual. Even before the age of 21, Justus Rosenberg had lived many lives. Today, the 95-year-old Professor at Bard College is believed the last living member of the American-sponsored Emergency Rescue Committee (headed by Varian Fry). Working out of Marseille, Fry's gang worked to smuggle anti-fascist artists and intellectuals out of occupied Europe, including Hannah Arendt, Marc Chagall and André Breton.

At this event, Professor Rosenberg will speak with writer Sarah Wildman. Wildman recently brought to light new details from Professor Rosenberg's life and work in an extensive profile for the New York Times.

Rosenberg himself was a Jewish refugee, born in 1921 in the Free City of Danzig. He was captured by the Gestapo in a round-up of mostly foreign Jews in Grenoble but escaped from a transit camp and joined the French Resistance. In the last year of the war, Rosenberg served the Americans in reconnaissance and, post-war, worked for United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

Professor Rosenberg now heads the Justus and Karin Rosenberg Foundation, dedicated to increasing understanding about, and combating, anti-Semitism and hatred.

Tickets: $10; $5 Center for Jewish History/partner members, seniors, students. Link: http://www.cjh.org/event/2908. Phone: 212-868-4444. The Center for Jewish History is located at 15 West 16th Street in Manhattan.

About the Center for Jewish History

The Center for Jewish History in New York City illuminates history, culture, and heritage. The Center provides a collaborative home for five partner organizations: American Jewish Historical Society, American Sephardi Federation, Leo Baeck Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

The partners' archives comprise the world's largest and most comprehensive archive of the modern Jewish experience outside of Israel. The collections span a thousand years, with more than 5 miles of archival documents (in dozens of languages and alphabet systems), more than 500,000 volumes, as well as thousands of artworks, textiles, ritual objects, recordings, films, and photographs.

The Center's experts are leaders in unlocking archival material for a wide audience through the latest practices in digitization, library science, and public education. As one of the world's foremost research institutions, the Center offers fellowships, a wide array of exhibitions, symposia, conferences and lectures. The Center is a Smithsonian Affiliate, and is a partner of the Google Cultural Institute.

The Center for Jewish History is home to the Lillian Goldman Reading Room, Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute, The David Berg Rare Book Room and The Collection Management & Conservation Wing. Public programs create opportunities for diverse audiences to explore the rich historical and cultural material that lives within the Center's walls.

About Leo Baeck Institute

The Leo Baeck Institute - New York | Berlin (LBI) is devoted to the history of German-speaking Jews. Its 80,000-volume library and extensive archival and art collections represent the most significant repository of primary source material and scholarship on the Jewish communities of Central Europe over the past five centuries.

LBI is committed to preserving this legacy and has digitized over 3.5 million pages of documents from its collections-from rare renaissance books to the personal correspondence of luminaries and ordinary people alike, to community histories and official documents. LBI also promotes the study and understanding of German-Jewish history through its public programs, exhibitions, and support for research and scholars.

LBI was founded in 1955 by leading German-Jewish émigré intellectuals who were determined to preserve the vibrant cultural heritage of German-speaking Jewry, which was nearly destroyed in the Holocaust. They named the Institute for Rabbi Leo Baeck, the last leader of Germany's Jewish Community under the Nazi regime, and established centers in New York, London, and Jerusalem. LBI - New York is a founding member of the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan and maintains an office in Berlin and a branch of its archives at the Jewish Museum Berlin.