A new exhibition at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London examines the Dreyfus Affair as the world’s first experience of antisemitism to have “gone viral”, according to library co-director Barbara Warnock. The exhibition, *J’accuse! Press, Polemic and the Dreyfus Affair*, opens 120 years after the French army captain Alfred Dreyfus was exonerated, promoted and awarded the Légion d’honneur.
The Dreyfus affair began in 1894 with the wrongful conviction for treason of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army captain. The case split France between those insistent on his guilt and outraged defenders; Zola accused the government of a cover-up and antisemitism. Printing presses were faster than ever and France’s prohibitive censorship laws had been lifted; the clash triggered a deluge of newspaper specials, posters and other polemics.
Among the 40 or so exhibits on display is a large poster from the Musée des Horreurs series, which caricatures the pro-Dreyfus politician Arthur Ranc as an alligator-like creature. “The point was to dehumanise all these figures that were defending Dreyfus’s innocence,” said curator Clara Dijkstra. She noted that the French government eventually shut down the series as “too grotesque” after about a year.
A copy of the rightwing newspaper La Libre Parole, which was the first to report that Dreyfus was guilty, is notable for what Dijkstra described as its “grotesque antisemitic imagery on its cover”. The only English-language Dreyfus-themed publication in the collection is a special edition of the Graphic, which focused on the affair as a courtroom drama under the headline “Dreyfus the martyr”.
One journal included, Psst….!, directly responded to Émile Zola’s open letter J’Accuse. Dijkstra explained that an image in the publication implies a conspiracy, showing a Prussian officer pulling the strings of a mask of Zola’s face with a caricature of a Jewish man behind it. “It is pretty much always the same message,” she said.
The library was founded by Alfred Wiener, who fled Germany for the Netherlands in 1933 after the rise of the Nazis and brought his collection of documents on antisemitism to London in 1938. The exhibition runs from 5 November to 19 March.
Analysis
Why This Matters
- The exhibition places the historical mechanics of antisemitic propaganda, dehumanisation, conspiracy theories, and media weaponisation, in direct conversation with the present day, a link Warnock herself explicitly drew.
- By framing the Dreyfus affair as the first “viral” antisemitism scandal, it highlights how technological change (faster printing, press liberalisation) accelerated the spread of hate, a pattern mirrored in modern social media dynamics.
- The timing, 120 years after Dreyfus’s exoneration, underscores the persistence of the tropes on display.
Background
The Dreyfus Affair erupted in 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army, was convicted of treason based on forged evidence. The case split France into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards. Writer Émile Zola published his open letter J’Accuse…! in 1898, accusing the government of antisemitism, for which he was convicted of libel. Dreyfus was eventually exonerated. The Wiener Holocaust Library began as a collection founded by Alfred Wiener, who documented the rise of antisemitism in Germany and brought the archive to London after fleeing the Nazis.
Key Perspectives
Clara Dijkstra (exhibition curator): Emphasises the deliberate dehumanisation of Dreyfus’s defenders in the Musée des Horreurs posters and the role of a newly aggressive press, such as La Libre Parole, in amplifying the scandal. She notes the government’s eventual decision to shut down the most grotesque publications as too extreme.
Barbara Warnock (co-director, Wiener Holocaust Library): Describes the affair as the first antisemitic story to go “viral”, drawing explicit parallels to how antisemitism manifests today and arguing the material remains immediately relevant.
What to Watch
- Whether the exhibition’s historical focus on French government censorship of the Musée des Horreurs sparks discussion about the regulation of harmful speech online.
- Public and scholarly reception of the comparison between 1890s print media and modern digital virality.
- Further programming or talks at the Wiener Library connected to the exhibition’s themes during its run to March.