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Book history --- anno 1930-1939 --- anno 1940-1949

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"'A Mortuary of Books' explores Jewish culture after the World War II."-- In March 1946 the American Military Government for Germany established the Offenbach Archival Depot near Frankfurt to store, identify, and restore the huge quantities of Nazi-looted books, archival material, and ritual objects that Army members had found hidden in German caches. These items bore testimony to the cultural genocide that accompanied the Nazis' systematic acts of mass murder. The depot built a short-lived lieu de memoire--a "mortuary of books," as the later renowned historian Lucy Dawidowicz called it--with over three million books of Jewish origin coming from nineteen different European countries awaiting restitution. A Mortuary of Books tells the miraculous story of the many Jewish organizations and individuals who, after the war, sought to recover this looted cultural property and return the millions of treasured objects to their rightful owners. Some of the most outstanding Jewish intellectuals of the twentieth century, including Dawidowicz, Hannah Arendt, Salo W. Baron, and Gershom Scholem, were involved in this herculean effort. This led to the creation of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Inc., an international body that acted as the Jewish trustee for heirless property in the American Zone and transferred hundreds of thousands of objects from the Depot to the new centers of Jewish life after the Holocaust. The commitment of these individuals to the restitution of cultural property revealed the importance of cultural objects as symbols of the enduring legacy of those who could not be saved. It also fostered Jewish culture and scholarly life in the postwar world. --

Jewish property --- World War, 1939-1945 --- Cultural property --- Jews --- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) --- Hebrew imprints --- Jewish libraries --- History --- Destruction and pillage --- Repatriation --- Civilization. --- Hessen --- Israel --- Europe. --- Israel. --- United States. --- Adolf Eichmann. --- American Jewish Congress. --- American Military Government in Germany. --- Berlin. --- Cecil Roth. --- Central Collecting Points. --- Commission on European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction. --- Committee on the Restoration of Continental Jewish Museums, Libraries, and Archives. --- Eichmann trial. --- Frankfurt Agreement. --- Frankfurt. --- Gegenwartsarbeit. --- Gershom Scholem. --- Gesamtarchiv. --- Hannah Arendt. --- Hugo Bergman. --- Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. --- Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc. (JCR). --- Jewish Cultural Reconstruction. --- Jewish Restitution Successor Organization (JRSO). --- Jewish collections. --- Jewish identity. --- Jewish intellectuals. --- Joshua Starr. --- Judah Magnes. --- Lucy S. Dawidowicz. --- Nuremberg. --- Offenbach Archival Depot. --- Otzrot HaGolah. --- Paper Brigade. --- Salo W. Baron. --- Salo Wittmayer Baron. --- Shlomo Shunami. --- Vilna. --- Wiesbaden Depot. --- World Jewish Congress. --- World Zionist Organization. --- YIVO. --- Yiddish Scientific Institute (YIVO). --- book-restitution operation. --- cultural restitution. --- diaspora. --- displaced persons camps (DP camps). --- heirless cultural property. --- historical consciousness. --- looting. --- memory objects. --- post-war Europe. --- postwar history. --- reconstruction. --- reparations. --- restitution.

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In the wake of the Nazi regime's policies, European Jewish cultural property was dispersed, dislocated, and destroyed. Books, manuscripts, and artworks were either taken by their fleeing owners and were transferred to different places worldwide, or they fell prey to systematic looting and destruction under German occupation. Until today, a significant amount of items can be found in private and public collections in Germany as well as abroad with an unclear or disputed provenance. Contested Heritage. Jewish Cultural Property after 1945 illuminates the political and cultural implications of Jewish cultural property looted and displaced during the Holocaust. The volume includes seventeen essays, accompanied by newly discovered archival material and illustrations, which address a wide range of topics: from the shifting meaning and character of the objects themselves, the so-called object biographies, their restitution processes after 1945, conflicting ideas about their appropriate location, political interests in their preservation, actors and networks involved in salvage operations, to questions of intellectual and cultural transfer processes revolving around the moving objects and their literary resonances. Thus, it offers a fascinating insight into lesser-known dimensions of the aftermath of the Holocaust and the history of Jews in postwar Europe.

Social Science / Jewish Studies --- Social sciences --- 1900-1999 --- Europe. --- Social Science --- Jewish Studies

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In the wake of the Nazi regime's policies, European Jewish cultural property was dispersed, dislocated, and destroyed. Books, manuscripts, and artworks were either taken by their fleeing owners and were transferred to different places worldwide, or they fell prey to systematic looting and destruction under German occupation. Until today, a significant amount of items can be found in private and public collections in Germany as well as abroad with an unclear or disputed provenance. Contested Heritage. Jewish Cultural Property after 1945 illuminates the political and cultural implications of Jewish cultural property looted and displaced during the Holocaust. The volume includes seventeen essays, accompanied by newly discovered archival material and illustrations, which address a wide range of topics: from the shifting meaning and character of the objects themselves, the so-called object biographies, their restitution processes after 1945, conflicting ideas about their appropriate location, political interests in their preservation, actors and networks involved in salvage operations, to questions of intellectual and cultural transfer processes revolving around the moving objects and their literary resonances. Thus, it offers a fascinating insight into lesser-known dimensions of the aftermath of the Holocaust and the history of Jews in postwar Europe.

Social Science / Jewish Studies --- Social sciences --- Social Science --- Jewish Studies --- 1900-1999 --- Europe.

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History