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In the Press - What Became of the Jewish Books?
“In the recent film “The Monuments Men,” George Clooney and his ensemble play a fictionalized version of a group of allied officers who shot their way through Europe during World War II, rescuing big, beautiful Old Masters’ paintings and sculpture plundered by the Nazis and stored in mines and other hideouts. But what the movie doesn’t show is that, after the war, the Monuments Men also saved tons upon tons of looted books.”
All across Europe entire libraries belonging to Jews, Freemasons, Jesuits or Communists were looted by the Nazi regime. The books which were not burnt or destroyed were hidden by the Nazis for eventual use after the war. So, when World War II was over, the US-army officers who were part of the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Program, found millions of books which had been stolen by Nazis. In her article for The New Yorker Sally MacGrane reports about a project including an online exhibit and a virtual map which intends to document the history and the provenances of those books according to their library stamps.