What the librarian saw
By Marjorie Kehe | 09.15.08
Yesterday’s Welt Online has a chilling story about the efforts of Berlin’s Central and Regional library headquarters to return books stolen by Nazis.
Apparently during the war, when Nazis looted the homes of Jews, freemasons, social democrats, and other persecuted minorities, they routinely helped themselves to their books and carted these off to public libraries.
Not surprisingly, trying to understand who once owned these books (which were confiscated between 1933 and 1945) and then locating the original owners or their families is a very difficult task. (Although Welt reports that about one quarter of the books do bear some sign of their previous owners.)
Some collections have already been restored (such as those of Berlin rabbi and theologian Leo Baeck and pianist Arthur Rubinstein) but library authorities agree that many stolen books will likely remain undetected. Although all books received during the war years will be regarded as suspicious, in many cases the mysteries behind these books are most likely to remain undiscovered.
It’s a story that brings to mind Lynn H. Nicholas’s nonfiction work, “The Rape of Europa,” which tells the story of Hitler’s plan to collect all the finest art of Europe for a master museum of his own.
But it also brings to mind a couple of more recent books, Geraldine Brooks’s novel “People of the Book” about heroes (including a librarian) who risk all to save a sacred book and Asne Seierstad’s “The Bookseller of Kabul,” a nonfiction account of one man’s struggle to keep some semblance of literary life alive in Kabul in 2002. (For a review of Seierstad’s new book,”Angel of Grozny,” check this site tomorrow.)
Although they are susceptible to misuse and abuse, it is still awesome to consider how often libraries and museums have survived war and kept their precious contents intact for the rest of us to sort out at conflict’s end. Had there been no libraries in Berlin, one wonders, where would those looted books have landed?
Comments
2. Debi | 09.16.08
“A purge is a purge is a purge, and don’t doubt it, it can (and will) happen here if the GOP comes out on top.”
I’m a Democrat voting for Obama, as well as a librarian, and find this statement to be a tad over-the-top. I seriously doubt that a McCain/Palin win would result in mass book bannings.
3. Librarian Bob | 09.16.08
just a tad…. Oh, and Governor Palin did not remove any books from any libraries (http://www.snopes.com/politics/palin/bannedbooks.asp), although she did, apparently, ask about the process for doing so. Of course, every public library in the country should have a written collection development policy which would explain that very thing. And part of the library director’s job is to explain all this to his or her boss, i.e., city or county administration. Shocking, I know….
The Nazis burned books, we all know that, but they also engaged in libricide (http://www.praeger.com/catalog/C8088.aspx?print=1) beyond simple book burning.
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1. Marcus | 09.15.08
There is only one problem with your story. The implication that large numbers of books were “stolen” by the Nazi movement and donated to libraries is disingenuous at least. Most of the books not approved by the National Socialists were not pilfered, they were burned, as miles of archival film footage shows. While some valuable books belonging to non-Nazis may have found their way into libraries, the vast majority were victims of the same urge that tempted the GOP Vice Presidential candidate to make one of her first official acts as mayor of a small town to remove those books that she didn’t approve of from the local library. A purge is a purge is a purge, and don’t doubt it, it can (and will) happen here if the GOP comes out on top.