- Summary
- While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves -- Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin's public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.
- Uniform Title
- Boktjuvarna. English
- Format
- Book
- Author/Creator
- Rydell, Anders, 1982- author.
- Published
- New York, New York : Viking, [2017]
©2017
- Locale
- Europe
- Contents
-
A fire that consumes the world: Berlin
Ghosts at Berliner Stadtbibliothek: Berlin
Goethe's oak: Weimar
Himmler's library: Munich
A warrior against Jerusalem: Chiemsee
Consolation for the tribulations of Israel: Amsterdam
The hunt for the secrets of the Freemasons: The Hague
Lenin worked here: Paris
The lost library: Rome
Fragments of a people: Thessaloniki
The mass grave Is a paper mill: Vilnius
The Talmud unit: Theresienstadt
"Jewish studies without Jews": Ratibor
Frankfurt
A wagon of shoes: Prague
A book ends its way home: Berlin
Cannock.
- Other Authors/Editors
- Koch, Henning, 1962- translator.
- Notes
-
Includes bibliographical references (pages 317-336) and index.
A fire that consumes the world: Berlin -- Ghosts at Berliner Stadtbibliothek: Berlin -- Goethe's oak: Weimar -- Himmler's library: Munich -- A warrior against Jerusalem: Chiemsee -- Consolation for the tribulations of Israel: Amsterdam -- The hunt for the secrets of the Freemasons: The Hague -- Lenin worked here: Paris -- The lost library: Rome -- Fragments of a people: Thessaloniki -- The mass grave Is a paper mill: Vilnius -- The Talmud unit: Theresienstadt -- "Jewish studies without Jews": Ratibor--Frankfurt -- A wagon of shoes: Prague -- A book ends its way home: Berlin--Cannock.
Translated from the Swedish.
