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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.

Crates awaiting return to Italy, 260-PHOAD-I-24, NARA.

Crates stacked two high awaiting return to Italy

Library Materials

Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims, and Jews, 1430-1950 / Mark Mazower. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005.

The Holocaust in Salonika: Eyewitness Account / ed. by Steven Bowman; translated from Greek and Judeo-Spanish by Isaac Benmayor. New York: Sephardic House, 2002.

The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival / Susan Zuccotti. New York: Basic Books, 1987.

Jewish Sites in Thessaloniki: Brief History and Guide / Rena Molho and Vilma Hastaoglou-Martinidis. Athens: Lycabettus Press, 2009.

1938: Le Leggi Contro Gli Ebrei / a cura di Michele Sarfatti. Roma: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane, 1988.

Zikhron Saloniki; Gedulatah ve-hurbanah shel Yerushalayim de-Balkan, ha-orekh / David A. Recanati. Tel-Aviv: ha-Vaad le-hotsaat sefer Kehilat Saloniki, 746 1985 or 1986.

Online Resources

Tedeschi, Mario. Alla ricerca della bibliotheca della communita ebraica di Roma saccheggiata nel 1943. La Rassegna Mensile di Israel terza serie, Vol. 70, No. 3 (Settembre - Dicembre 2004), pp. 165-174. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41287640 

Documents concerning the destruction of Jewish libraries in Rome: https://presidenza.governo.it/USRI/confessioni/appendice.html

Report on the activities of the Commission for the Recovery of the Bibliographic Patrimony of the Jewish Community of Rome stolen in 1943, Translated by Lenore Rosenberg: https://presidenza.governo.it/USRI/confessioni/doc/rapporto_finale_eng.pdf

Testimonies and eye-witness accounts of the destruction of Jewish libraries in Rome: http://www.studistorici.com/2012/01/26/27-gennaio-giorno-della-memoria/