A series of images published from autumn 1899 to 1900 ran in 45 to 50 versions. They depicted key figures who were pro-Dreyfus.
The affair also included accusations that the French government practised antisemitism and a cover-up. Organisers noted possible echoes in how antisemitism manifests itself today.
After about a year in print, the French government judged the images too grotesque and shut down their publication, even as they reflected a more relaxed press climate.
One paper with a large circulation was the first to report that Dreyfus was guilty and so broke the story in that form.
“The point was to dehumanise all these figures that were defending Dreyfus’s innocence,” according to material presented with the exhibition.
The Wiener Holocaust Library was founded by Alfred Wiener, grandfather of Conservative peer Daniel Finkelstein.
The show treats the late-nineteenth-century scandal as an early case of rapidly circulating antisemitic imagery, enabled by faster printing presses in 1894.
Dijkstra said the material is not necessarily highlighting the antisemitism, but focuses more on the miscarriage of justice.