The Hunt for the Nazi Loot Still Sitting on Library Shelves

January 26, 2019 11:07 PM

Given the scope of the looting, the task ahead remains mountainous. In Berlin, for example, at the Central and Regional Library, almost a third of the 3.5 million books are suspected to have been looted by the Nazis, according to Sebastian Finsterwalder, a provenance researcher there.
posted by Chrysostom (3 comments total)

. . .they later came to transfer many of the works to libraries and to the Institute for Study of the Jewish Question . . .to utilize the books after the war was won to study their enemies and their culture so as to protect future Nazis from the Jews
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:29 AM on January 27, 2019

Wow, that's an impressive effort. I can't imagine even barely scratching the surface.


Hmmm. Paper is pretty absorbent. I wonder if you could at least put collections back together by looking for a similar pattern of contaminants.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:58 AM on January 27, 2019

I wouldn't be surprised if the Nazis looted books belonging to my family. My grandfather was in the book business in Vienna, and when he fled I'm sure he left a lot of stuff with his mother, who died in the Holocaust. (He managed to hold on to some old books, including a set of German encyclopedias that are in my parents' house.) If they exist, I think I would personally be ok with those books staying in Austrian or German libraries, as long as their provenance were properly acknowledged. I don't need the books, but I do want people in Germany and Austria to acknowledge how central Jews were to the cultural lives of their countries and how much they lost when they killed or exiled most of their Jewish populations. I realize that other families (or even other people in my family) might feel differently.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:38 AM on January 27, 2019 [12 favorites]