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Subject Guide: Book Looting During the Holocaust

Archival and library collection highlights found at the Center related to the looting and destruction of Jewish books during the Holocaust, and later restitution efforts.

Russian books preparing for shipment, Photographic History Volume II, 260-PHOAD-II-27, NARA.

Crates full of Russian books are stacked three high intended for shipment

Library Materials

Fishman, David E., et al. Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow : a Guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive / Edited by David E. Fishman, Mark Kupovetsky, Vladimir Kuzelenkov; Translated by Avram Brown. English-language ed., University of Scranton Press in Association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Jewish Theological Seminary, 2010.

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy., and Hoogewoud, F. J. Returned from Russia : Nazi Archival Plunder in Western Europe and Recent Restitution Issues / Edited by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, F.J. Hoogewoud and Eric Ketelaar. Institute of Art and Law, 2007.

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. The Road to Minsk for Western "Trophy' Books : Twice Plundered but Not Yet "Home from War". Offprint from: Libraries and cultures. Vol. 39, No. 1, 2004. 

Grimsted, Patricia Kennedy. Trophies of War and Empire : the Archival Heritage of Ukraine, World War II, and the International Politics of Restitution / Patricia Kennedy Grimsted. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 2001.

Mizrachi, Diane, Ivan Kohout, Michal BusĖŒek. “The Recovery of Nazi Looted Books in the UCLA Library: From Prague to Los Angeles and Back”, Judaica Librarianship 22 (2022) 5–19. https://doi.org/10.14263/22/2022/705 

Muneles, Otto. Bibliographical Survey of Jewish Prague: the Jewish State Museum of Prague. Orbis, 1952.

Simpson, Elizabeth. The Spoils of War : World War II and Its Aftermath : the Loss, Reappearance, and Recovery of Cultural Property / Edited by Elizabeth Simpson. H.N. Abrams in Association with the Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, 1997.

Sroka, Marek. The Destruction of Jewish Libraries and Archives in Cracow during World War II / Marek Sroka. University of Texas Press, 2003.