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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.

Abraham Sutzkever and the Paper Brigade, RG 223.1 Folder 710. Courtesy of YIVO.

Photo of Abraham Sutzkever and the Paper Brigade outdoors with a cart of material      Correspondence in handwritten Yiddish

Library Highlights

The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis / David E. Fishman. Lebanon, NH: ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England, 2017.

The Diary of the Vilna Ghetto; June 1941-April 1943 Translated from the original Yiddish manuscript and redacted on the basis of the Hebrew; edition with revisions and additions by Percy Matenko / Yitskhok Rudashevski. Tel Aviv: Ghetto Fighters' House, 1973.

Herman Kruk: Bibliothekar und Chronist im Ghetto Wilna / Maria Kühn-Ludewig. Hannover: Sonderheft-Laurentius, 1988.

The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939-1944 / Herman Kruk; ed. by Benjamin Harshav; translated by Barbara Harshav. New York, NY: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 2002

The Lost Library: The Legacy of Vilna's Strashun Library in the Aftermath of the Holocaust / Dan Rabinowitz. Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press, 2019.

טאגבוך פון ווילנער געטא. / Herman Kruk. Nyu-Yorḳ: Yidisher Visnsharṭ-lekher Insṭiṭuṭ-Yiṿo, 1961.

Archival Highlights

Abraham Sutzkever-Szmerke Kaczerginski Vilna Ghetto Collection [Digitized]

The bulk of the collection contains documents generated by the Judenrats of the Vilna ghetto during Nazi occupation. Other materials: 1942 maps of the ghetto; diaries, chronicles and manuscripts on the history of the ghetto by Zelig Kalmanowicz, Herman Kruk (ghetto librarian), Yitskhok Rudashevski, and Szmerke Kaczerginski. Series XVI contains records from the Library, Reading Room, and Bookstore. 

Records of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Science [Digitized]

Included are YIVO materials discovered at the Wroblewski Library in Lithuania. Materials cover a wide range of topics: Jewish education, Jewish communities, Jewish religious life, immigration, commerce, persecution, and more. The collection consists of correspondence, minutes of meetings, reports, decrees, proclamations, educational materials, certificates, vital documents including birth and death certificates, travel documents, and other.

Vilna Collection [Digitized]

The Vilna Collection represents fragmentary materials that were part of the original YIVO Archives in Vilna pre-WWII. There is a wealth of materials dealing with various aspects of the Jewish book trade and publishing. There are materials on Jewish booksellers and Jewish libraries, most notably Leon Lipschutz. These materials consist of correspondence, lists, bibliographic and printed materials, financial documents, and manuscripts. A large portion of the collection deals with Jewish publishers.

Papers of Khaykl Lunski [Digitized]

The materials in this collection relate to Lunski's literary efforts, communal engagement, work at the Strashun Library, and personal life. The administrative records of the Strashun Library include bibliographic notes, preliminary book catalogs, financial records, minutes, and bulletins.