For several months, PPM staff in cooperation with locals from Rachaya al Wadi contacted people from the community of Rachaya to collect old photographs dating before the Lebanese civil war. The efforts were fruitful: over 500 old photographs, some of them dating back to the early 1900s, were collected, identified, scanned and archived. A selection of the best 200 pictures were printed. On December 8th, 2012, an exhibition with these photographs was inaugurated in the municipality of Rachaya al Wadi, under the auspices of his Excellency, Minister of Social Affairs Wael Abou Faour. Old documents as well as photographs from the struggle against the French forces in 1925, which resulted in the destruction of the village, as well as the reconstructed souk and houses in the early 1920s and 1930s made the introduction of the exhibition. Pictures of personalities of the communities, common village celebrations as well as many personal pictures from Rachaya’s inhabitants were displayed. Some particularly interesting photographs showed a getting-together of Rachaya’s immigrants to the USA in the 1930s and 1940s. The exhibition was complemented by a short documentary that showed old footage of Lebanese-Americans visiting their home country in the 1940s and 1950s as well as by photographs from last years’ exhibition, displaying old photographs from the region of Barja and Byblos
The exhibition was planned to stay for three days only, but due to the immense echo from both Christian and Druze inhabitants it was extended for one more week and now it will stay until next year. The Rachaya photographs will later on be transferred to Rachaya castle as permanent exhibition starting in 2013.
A big “thank you” to all who participated in the huge effort to make this exhibition come true! And of course to our donors, the Institute for Foreign Relations (IFA) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Germany, which financed this exhibition in the framework of our “Memory and Reconciliation project”.