Non-restitutable Books and the Library That Never Was

Intrator, Miriam

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-15816-3_6

Miriam Intrator⁴

Part of the book series: New Directions in Book History ((NDBH))

191 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter continues with the theme of confiscated books by examining the short-lived plan to build a World Jewish Library in Europe, under the auspices of UNESCO, as a home for a portion of confiscated Jewish books that could not be restituted because their original owners or any surviving relations had not survived or were not identifiable. The World Jewish Library plan, almost entirely forgotten since, challenges the long-held view that Jewish life and culture fled or was shipped, virtually without question or contest, out of post-Holocaust Europe at the earliest possible opportunity. This chapter argues that one of the visions for postwar Europe included a new future for a postwar Jewish Europe, one that provided an alternative future vision to Zionism.

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Notes

1.
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Jewish National and University Library (Jerusalem, 1960).
2.
Lucy S. Dawidowicz, From That Place and Time: A Memoir 1938–1947 (Rutgers University Press, 2008), 316.
3.
Dawidowicz, From That Place and Time, 319.
4.
See the first issue of Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, “Jews in Europe after the Shoah: Studies and Research Perspectives,” (April 2010); Shira Klein, Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), especially chapter 7 “Recovery and Revival: Postwar Italian Jewry and the JDC,” 182–203 and 8 “The Myth of the Good Italian: Making Peace with Postwar Italy,” 204–227; Daniella Doron, Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015); Laura Hobson Faure, Un “plan Marshall juif”: La presence juive américaine en France après la Shoah, 1944–1954 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2013); Karen Auerbach, The House at Ujazdowskie 16: Jewish Families in Warsaw after the Holocaust (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013).
5.
Rafael Edelmann to Aaron Steinberg, 1 May 1946. Det Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen, Raphael Edelmann Papers (hereafter DKB, Edelmann Papers). According to his son, Rafael is the proper spelling of his name. However, Raphael is the spelling that appears on many documents and records. Edelmann himself often signed papers using only his first initial. This work respects the family spelling even if it differs from that on the majority of documents.
6.
Rafael Edelmann to Steinberg, 2 January 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
7.
Scholarship on the aftermath of Nazi policy toward Jewish cultural property is increasingly expansive. Select recent works that focus on books and libraries include Rydell, The Book Thieves; Nancy Sinkoff, “From the Archives: Lucy S. Dawidowicz and the Restitution of Jewish Cultural Property,” American Jewish History 100:1 (January 2016), 117–147; Lisa Moses Leff, The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust (Oxford University Press, 2015); as well as the extensive output of Patricia Kennedy Grimsted; see http://socialhistory.org/en/russia-archives-and-restitution/bibliography. Accessed 20 August 2018.
8.
David E. Fishman, The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis, The True Story of the Paper Brigade of Vilna (Lebanon, NY: ForeEdge, 2017). See also Samuel Kassow, Who Will Write Our History: Emanuel Ringelblum, the Warsaw Ghetto, and the Oyneg Shabbat Archive (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007); Herman Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, trans. Barbara Harshav (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press and YIVO, 2002).
9.
Julian Huxley draft letter to Allied Control Authority for Germany in Berlin, 1945. UA, World Jewish Library.
10.
Lucy Schildkret to Max Weinreich, 25 May 1947. Papers of Lucy S. Dawidowicz; P-675; Box 55; Folder 4; American Jewish Historical Society, Newton Centre, MA, and New York, NY (hereafter AJHS, Dawidowicz Papers).
11.
Kurtz, America and the Return of Nazi Contraband; Jason Lustig, “Who Are to Be the Successors of European Jewry? The Restitution of German Jewish Communal and Cultural Property,” Journal of Contemporary History 52:3 (2017): 519–545.
12.
Dr. Kurt Wilhelm, Stockholm, to Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc., 28 July 1949. MssArc 5737. RG 7. Research Libraries – Jewish Division. Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (hereafter NYPL, Jewish Division).
13.
Judah Magnes to Edelmann, 22 January 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
14.
Lustig, “Who Are to Be the Successors of European Jewry?”; Dana Herman, “‘A Brand Plucked Out of the Fire’: The Distribution of Heirless Jewish Cultural Property by Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc., 1947–1952,” in Julie-Marthe Cohen, ed., Neglected Witnesses: The Fate of Jewish Ceremonial Objects During the Second World War and After (Amsterdam: Joods Historisch Museum, 2011): 29–62.
15.
For more on this difficult transition see S. Ilan Troen, ed., Jewish Centers & Peripheries: Europe between America and Israel Fifty Years After World War II (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999).
16.
Paleographer Malachi Beit-Arié describes Scholem’s involvement in the postwar rescue of Jewish books as a “sacred task.” Mendes-Flohr, “Gershom Scholem as Bibliophile,” in Paul Mendes-Flohr, ed., Gershom Scholem: The Man and His Work (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994), 125.
17.
Dawidowicz, From That Place and Time, 316. See also the important new work of the same title: Elisabeth Gallas, A Mortuary of Books: The Rescue of Jewish Culture After the Holocaust, trans. Alex Skinner (New York: New York University Press, 2019). For a comprehensive study of JCR, see Dana Herman, Hashavat Avedah: A History of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc., PhD thesis, McGill University, 2008.
18.
Fishman, The Book Smugglers, 193; Edmund Andrews, “I.G. Farben: A Lingering Relic of the Nazi Years,” The New York Times, 2 May 1999; Josiah E. Du Bois, Jr., in collaboration with Edward Johnson, The Devil’s Chemists: 24 Conspirators of the International Farben Cartel who Manufacture Wars (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952); Joseph Borkin, The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben (New York: Free Press, 1978).
19.
M. Fekete, Rector and D.W. Senator, Administrator, HU to Le Conseil d’éducation et de la culture juive en France, 26 May 1947. Hebrew University of Jerusalem Central Archives, Mount Scopus Campus, Jerusalem, University/University Library Archives, University (hereafter HU, U/ULA), 1947 I.
20.
Steinberg to Edelmann, 24 April 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers; “Prague Lodz other European communities for allocation books.” cable from Joseph Schwartz to Judah Magnes, 10 May 1946. Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Judah Magnes Papers (hereafter CAHJP, Magnes Papers), P3/2056; Basia Bermanowa to Central Committee of Jews in Poland, 4 April 1945. Archiwum Żydowsiego Instytutu Historycznego, Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce (hereafter ZIH, CKZP), Prezydium i Sekretariat, sygn. 303/I134.
21.
Mr. J. Gershman, President of the Conference, quoted in Special Correspondent, “The World Jewish Congress,” The Jewish Monthly 2:5 (August 1949): Appendix I, 285.
22.
“Public” mention of the plan has only been found in a handful of press releases and in two Jewish newspapers: “‘UNESCO’ First Conference: Ambitious Plans for ‘World Education,’” The Jewish Chronicle, 15 November 1946, 14; A.d.J. [A. de Jong], “Displaced Books: Joodse bibliotheken naar Amsterdam?” Nieuw Israelietisch Weekblad (29 November 1946), 5.
23.
Edelmann to Steinberg, 10 February 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
24.
Shira Klein has recently documented the postwar history of Italian Jewry, including their production of more Jewish newspapers, periodicals, and books than prior to World War II. Klein, Italy’s Jews from Emancipation to Fascism, 194.
25.
Theodor H. Gaster to Luther H. Evans, 30 December 1945. Library of Congress Archives, European Mission & Cooperative Acquisitions Project (hereafter LoC, European Mission), Container 34, Folder Restitution of “unrestituted materials” (Jewish Books).
26.
Minutes, AIU Central Committee meeting, 13 December 1944. Archives, Alliance Israélite Universelle (hereafter Fonds AIU) PVCCAIU, Cote CCI 1941–1947, Dossier Comite Centrale 1941–1946 [procès-verbaux].
27.
CAME Memorandum AME/B/7, undated; 4th meeting draft minutes, 15 April 1943, UA, CAME, London 1942–1945, Vol. III BPC; CAME Interim Report of the Books and Periodicals Commission, July 1943, 3. UA, 361.9 02 Reconstruction Libraries; Aaron Steinberg to Rafael Edelmann, 10 October 1945, DKB, Edelmann Papers.
28.
Isidore Meyer, “The War and Our Books,” undated [citations through mid-1943], 4. Bound typed mss. Isidore Meyer Papers; P-90 [collection was processed after viewing]; American Jewish Historical Society, Boston, MA and New York, NY (hereafter AJHS, Meyer Papers), 79.
29.
Harry M. Lydenberg to Oskar Halecki, 22 January 1944. PIASA Archives, 17.173.
30.
Gerhart Riegner, Never Despair: Sixty Years in the Service of the Jewish People and the Cause of Human Rights (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2006), 370.
31.
Arieh Tartakower, “Problems of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction in Europe,” Journal of Educational Sociology 18:5 The Jew in the Postwar World (January 1945): 274–275.
32.
Steinberg , Report on the Establishment of UNESCO, November 1945. American Jewish Archives, World Jewish Congress Records, Series B, Box 127, Folder 7 (hereafter AJA, WJC, Series/Box/Folder).
33.
Wolf Blattberg memo, 4 April 1947. AJA, WJC, B/127/7.
34.
Steinberg , Report on the Establishment of UNESCO, November, 2. AJA, WJC, E/B127/7 UNESCO 1945–1947.
35.
JM Confidential Memo of Mexico City Conference, pp. 4–5. AJA, Marshall Papers, 30/5, UNESCO Mexico City Conf 1947–1948; 1952.
36.
Jozef Sandel to UNESCO Directorate, 2 June 1947. AAN, Ministerstwo Oświaty, sygn. 765.
37.
Asnath Klausner to Zuckerman, 6 June 1947. Central Zionist Archives, Aaron Steinberg Papers (hereafter CZA, Steinberg Papers), Zuckerman and Steinberg correspondence, June to October 1947, C2/4444 Libraries & Museums.
38.
C.L. Lang, “Exposé sur un centre mondial juif pour les relations culturelles à Paris,” 22 June 1946. University of Southampton, MS262, Papers of Aaron Zakharovich Steinberg (1891–1975), 1910–1993 (hereafter Southampton, Steinberg Papers) 6/2/6; M. Schliachter, “Editions – Publications – Bibliothèques, Hier, Aujourd’hui, Demain,” undated, 1–2. Archives, Alliance Israélite Universelle, Fonds Edmond-Maurice Levy [AIU bibliothécaire] AP 1 (hereafter AIU, Fonds Levy), AP 1/43.
39.
Edelmann to Steinberg, 2 January 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
40.
Edelmann to Fanny Goldstein, 8 August 1946. American Jewish Archives, Fanny Goldstein Papers, 2/16 (hereafter AJA, Goldstein Papers).
41.
Emphasis in original. Edelmann to Steinberg, 2 January 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
42.
UNESCO Preparatory Commission Provisional Record of 9th meeting, London, 10 July 1946, 3pm. UA, Preparatory Commission, London-Paris, 1945–1946, Vol. II Records of Plenary Meetings.
43.
Edelmann to Luther H. Evans, 14 August 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
44.
Riegner, Never Despair, 370.
45.
Report, “The Department of Culture and Education,” 31 January 1950. AJA, WJC, E/10/15.
46.
C.E. Aagaard to Steinberg, 6 February 1946. UA, World Jewish Library.
47.
Riegner, Never Despair, 370.
48.
Riegner, Never Despair, 371.
49.
Steinberg to Edelmann, 13 November 1945. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
50.
Edelmann conversation with Professor Ehrenpreis in Stockholm, referred to in Edelmann to Steinberg, 10 February 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
51.
Simon Federbush to Steinberg, 5 February 1947; Simon Federbush memo, “Representation of the World Jewish Congress at the UNESCO Conference held in Paris from November 19th to December 10, 1946,” 12 February 1947. AJA, WJC, E/1/7.
52.
Wolf Blattberg to Asnath Klausner, 25 June 1947. AJA, WJC, E/3/8.
53.
Zuckerman to Magnes, 17 January 1947. Salo W. Baron Papers. M0580. Dept. of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, Calif., Box 43 Folder 5 (hereafter Stanford, Baron Papers), 42/11.
54.
Simon Federbush to Jiři Liban, 21 October 1947 [same request sent to various others]. AJA, WJC, E/1/7.
55.
Gershom Scholem to Leo W. Schwarz, 11 November 1947. Hebrew National and University Library (hereafter HNUL), Otzrot ha-Golah papers, Arc. 4° 793/212 III 1947 NL.
56.
Katharina Rauschenberger, “The Restitution of Jewish Cultural Objects and the Activities of Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc.,” Leo Baeck Year Book 53:1 (2008): 203–204.
57.
Salo Baron to Jerome Michael, August 14, 1947. Stanford, Baron Papers, 43/5.
58.
Edward Phillips, to Salo Baron, 25 June 1947. American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, 45–54 #1745 JCR 1947–1948.
59.
Library of Congress Mission memo, 26 February 1946. AJA, WJC, E/1/3.
60.
Simon Federbush to Jerome Michael, 3 June 1946. AJA, WJC, E/1/4.
61.
From ‘La Terre Retrouvé’, Paris, 15 February 1947. HU, U/ULA, 1947 I.
62.
Scholem and Abraham Yaari to Magnes, 24 April 1946. HNUL, 4°1599/23/2.
63.
54th meeting draft minutes, 29 November 1945. UA, CAME, London 1942–1945, Vol. III BPC.
64.
Scholem to Hannah Arendt, 7 December 1950. HNUL, 4° 793/288/212.
65.
Edelmann to Fanny Goldstein, 27 February 1947. AJA, Goldstein Papers, 2/16.
66.
Magnes to Zuckerman, 29 January 1947. Stanford, Baron Papers, 42/11.
67.
Edelmann to Zuckerman 26 September 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
68.
Edelmann to Zuckerman, 8 January 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
69.
Scholem to Dr. [Amerik] Sharp, 4 August 1946; Scholem to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 29 July 1946, in Itta Shedletzky, ed., Gershom Scholem Briefe 1: 1914–1947 (Munich: Verlag C.H. Beck, 1994), 321–22.
70.
Arthur Hertzberg, “Gershom Scholem as Zionist and Believer,” Modern Judaism 5:1 (February 1985): 13.
71.
David Biale, Gershom Scholem : Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 8.
72.
Hertzberg, “Gershom Scholem,” 14–15.
73.
Scholem to Salo Baron, 31 May 1949. HNUL, 4° 793/288/19.
74.
Edelmann to Steinberg, 10 February 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
75.
Steinberg to Edelmann, 20 September 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
76.
Steinberg to Carter, 4 September 1946. CZA, C2/4444 Libraries & Museums Section.
77.
Repræsentanterne for Det Mosaiske Troessamfund i København, 16 April 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
78.
Svend Dahl, 25 October 1945. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
79.
Edelmann to Steinberg, 24 September 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
80.
UNESCO Preparatory Commission, Documents Disposal Sheet, Issuing Officer: Delegation Danoise, Subject: Looted of books of Germany [sic]. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
81.
Helge Wamberg to Jean Thomas, 8 November 1946. Rigsarkivet [The Danish National Archives], Collection 1248 Den Danske UNESCO-Nationalkommission, Box 3 1947–1960 UNESCO-sager, 1947, 1721, Folder: Udstillung Paris 1946 (hereafter Rigsarkivet 1248); Referat af Møde, 12 October 1946. Rigsarkivet, 1248, Box 2 1947–1960 UNESCO-sager, 1947, 1721/Brev No. 27196, 4 February 1946, UNESCO 1721/46 (810) 1721/47.
82.
Edelmann to Zuckerman, 26 September 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers; C.E. Aagaard [undated report, first 3 pages missing]. Rigsarkivet, 1248, Box 1 1947–1960 UNESCO-sager 1947 1721/Brev No. 12863, 22 June 1946, 1721/45.
83.
Steinberg to Edelmann, 29 January 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
84.
UNESCO Preparatory Commission, Documents Disposal Sheet, Issuing Officer: Delegation Danoise, Subject: Looted of books of Germany [sic]. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
85.
Magnes to Koppel Pinson, 3 May 1946. CAHJP, Magnes Papers, P3/2056.
86.
Steinberg to Edelmann, 22 January 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
87.
15 May 1946, Committee on Libraries, Museums, etc., Memorandum on Problem and Policies in the Development of World Library and Information Services, Appendix 4. Summary of Proposals. UA, Preparatory Commission, London-Paris, 1945–1946, Vol. V Programme Committees.
88.
Steinberg to Mr. Z. Shazar, Israeli Minister of Education, 17 March 1949. AJA, WJC, B/127/1.
89.
Carter to Zuckerman, 29 August 1946. UA, Preparatory Commission, Box 43, 38/1/308
90.
OMGUS, Colonel John H. Allen, Chief, Restitution Branch to Director Offenbach Archival Depot, 16 April 1946, Subject: Removal of Books from Berlin MFA&A to Offenbach. NARA, M1942, Roll 1, OAD Correspondence 1946–1949.
91.
Arendt to Scholem, 11 October 1949. HNUL, 4° 793/288/47.
92.
Magnes to Edelmann, 22 January 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
93.
Hannah Arendt, notes for a lecture, undated. Library of Congress Archives, Hannah Arendt Papers, Box 78, Folder “Remarks to European Jewry” lecture, n.d.
94.
Edward M.M. Warburg to Judah Magnes, 29 January 1948. HU, U/ULA, 1948.
95.
54th meeting draft minutes, 29 November 1945. UA, CAME, London 1942–1945, Vol. III BPC, History, Committees and Sub-Committees.
96.
Technical Document No. 1: Libraries and Documentations Submitted by Round Table on Cultural Institutions (Chapter 5) (Libraries, Museums, Archives, and Publications), 25 September 1946. AJA, Marshall Papers, 31/11.
97.
Zuckerman to Carter, 9 December 1946. UA, Preparatory Commission, Box 43, 38/1/308.
98.
Colonel John Allen, 16 August 1946. NARA, RG 260, MFAA, OMGUS, M1949, 456, Arch-Libr. Offenbach Archival Depot.
99.
Edelmann to Steinberg, 23 June 1947. AJHS, Dawidowicz Papers, 55/5.
100.
Steinberg to Edelmann, 24 April 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
101.
Edelmann to Curt Wormann, 28 November 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
102.
Zuckerman to David Clift, 18 February 1946, LoC, European Mission, 33/Representatives Zuckerman, Jacob 1946.
103.
Zuckerman memo, 2 December 1946; Zuckerman to Magnes, 17 January 1947, p. 3. UA, World Jewish Library.
104.
Carter to Charles A. Thompson, 19 February 1947, p. 2; Notes on discussion between Mr. Svend Dahl, Mr. R. Edelmann {Danish delegates} and Mr. Carter, Dr. Zuckerman {Libraries & Museum Section}, 21 November 1946. UA, World Jewish Library.
105.
UNESCO Preparatory Commission Provisional Record of 9th meeting, London, 10 July 1946, 3pm. UA, Preparatory Commission, London-Paris, 1945–1946, Vol. II Records of Plenary Meetings.
106.
Zuckerman to Magnes, 17 January 1947; Zuckerman to Edelmann, 20 February 1947; Zuckerman to Theodore Besterman, 28 March 1947. UA, World Jewish Library.
107.
Steinberg to Edelmann, 24 April 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
108.
Zuckerman to Edelmann, 20 February 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
109.
Svend Dahl to Karl Lachmannn, 17 March 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers; Edelmann to Steinberg, 23 June 1947. AJHS, Dawidowicz Papers, 55/5; Edelmann to Zuckerman, 24 June 1947. UA, World Jewish Library; Edelmann to Asnath Klausner, 1 July 1947, DKB, Edelmann Papers; Edelmann to Fanny Goldstein, 2 July 1947. AJA, Goldstein Papers, 2/16; Commission on European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Meeting Minutes, 26 June 1946. Stanford, Baron Papers, 209/12.
110.
Cowell to Jean Thomas, 22 July 1946; Thomas to Cowell, 26 July 1946; Cowell to Thomas, 26 August 1946. UA, Preparatory Commission, Box 43, 38/2/309.
111.
Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, “Twice Plundered or ‘Twice Saved’? Identifying Russia’s ‘Trophy’ Archives and the Loot of the Reichssicher-heitshauptamt” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 15:2 (2001): 191–244.
112.
JCR meeting minutes, 26 June 1946. Stanford, Baron Papers, 209/12; Seymour Pomrenze to Edelmann, 13 November 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
113.
Minutes of special meeting of Board of Directors, 9 October 1950. HNUL, 4° 793/288/326.
114.
Arendt to Baron, 1 October 1945; Hannah Arendt Memorandum, Conversation with Dr. Karbach, Friday, 5 April 1946. Stanford, Baron Papers, 39/2; Scholem to Arendt, 30 April 1950. HNUL, 4° 793/288/117.
115.
Seymour Pomrenze to Edelmann, 13 November 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
116.
JCR meeting minutes, 26 June 1946. Stanford, Baron Papers, 209/12; Wolf Blattberg to Asnath Klausner, 25 June 1947. AJA, WJC, E/3/8.
117.
Unsigned letter to Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., May 1946; Commission on European Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Meeting Minutes, 26 June 1946. Stanford, Baron Papers, 209/12.
118.
Scholem to David Werner Senator, Vice President, HU, Memorandum, 17 September 1948. HU, U/ULA, 1948.
119.
“Saving Books From Europe: 130,000 Volumes for National Library,” Palestine Post, 21 July 1948, 3; Wolf Blattberg to Members of the Office Committee, 20 May 1948. AJA, WJC, E/9/13.
120.
Wolf Blatterg to Dr. Kubowitzki, 2 April 1947. AJA, WJC, E/3/7.
121.
Theodor H. Gaster to Luther H. Evans, 30 December 1945. LoC, European Mission, 34/Restitution of “unrestituted materials” (Jewish Books).
122.
Magnes to Sir Alan Cunningham, High Commissioner for Palestine, 8 March 1948. AJA, Marshall Papers, 21/9 Magnes, Judah L. 1909–1948.
123.
Svend Dahl to Jakob Nielsen, 6 July 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
124.
Scholem to Simon Federbush, 12 December 1947. HU, U/UL, 1947 I.
125.
Svend Dahl to Curt Wormann, [3 December 194?]. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
126.
Scholem to Mr. Levine, JDC Paris, 10 November 1948. HNUL, 4°1599/23/4.
127.
Edelmann to Fanny Goldstein, 25 September 1948. WJC, Goldstein Papers, 2/16, Edelman, R. 1946–1960; Jewish Behind the Iron Curtain: A Survey of the Condition of Jews in Countries Behind the Iron Curtain According to the Latest Information (Issued by the Jewish Labor Committee in connection with its national convention in Atlantic City, N.J., 24–27 February 1949). YIVO Archives, 3/54716.
128.
European Members of the General Conference Session, Paris, 29–30 August 1949: Aaron Steinberg on 30 August 1949. Southampton, Steinberg Papers, 6/3/6.
129.
“Dr. J.L. Magnes, in his letter to me of 23th[sic] January 1947, wrote: ‘As an initial member of the Trusteeship Corporation /in USA/, the Hebrew University will be ready to advocate the idea of a Central Library at Copenhagen to be set up from among such works as may be available for such a purpose’, and again in his letter of 17th February 1947: ‘I should like to repeat this, and to emphasize our readiness to advocate the idea of a Central Library at Copenhagen.’” Edelmann to Curt Wormann, 28 November 1947. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
130.
Edelmann to Magnes, cc Scholem, 28 February 1947. HU, U/ULA, 1947 I.
131.
Edelmann to Steinberg, 28 August 1946. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
132.
Edelmann to Steinberg, 23 June 1947. AJHS, Dawidowicz Papers, 55/5.
133.
Asnath Klausner to Simon Federbush, 15 November 1947. AJA, WJC, B/127/10.
134.
44.03% as of 13 November 1947. Statement of contributions to the 1947 Budget at 13 November 1947, 2C/2 Annex E Add. 1 Page 1. UNESCO, Budget Estimates for the Financial Year 1948 and Information Annex (Paris: UNESCO, 1947); UNESCO Budget and Revolving Fund, 24 June 1947. AJA, Marshall Papers, 16/11.
135.
Asnath Klausner to Simon Federbush, 5 December 1947. AJA, WJC, B/127/10.
136.
Julian Huxley to the Adjunct General, 6 November 1946. UA, Zuckerman Personnel File.
137.
Herman, Hashavat Avedah, 151–152.
138.
Wolf Blattberg to Edelmann, 29 September 1949. AJA, WJC, E/4/7.
139.
Edelmann to Fanny Goldstein, 10 September 1951. WJC, Goldstein Papers. See also R. Edelmann, “The Jewish Collections in the Royal Library of Copenhagen,” Jewish Book Annual 24 (1966–1967): 41; Edelmann, The Royal Library : Bibliotheca Judaica Simonseniana (Copenhagen, 1957).
140.
Edelmann to M. le President [Cassin ], AIU, 4 February 1953. DKB, Edelmann Papers.
141.
Dov Schidorsky argues that it was not until the late 1990s when “an effort [was] made to carry out wide-ranging provenance research regarding the cultural assets in libraries and archives in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and other countries.” Dov Schidorsky, “Hannah Arendt’s Dedication to Salvaging Jewish Culture,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 59 (2014): 191.
142.
Henri Michel, “Les travaux d’histoire sur la seconde guerre mondiale,” Annales. Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 8:1 (1953): 102.
143.
See, for example, “Claims Conference,” http://www.claimscon.org/; OMGUS – Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section https://www.fold3.com/browse/114/hRyVVKV8Z; Mitch Fraas, Bookstamps from Looted Libraries. https://www.flickr.com/photos/65703354@N08/sets/72157631456858474/; The Rare Books of the Shimeon Brisman Collection in Jewish Studies, Bookstamps http://omeka.wustl.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/brisman/bookstamp; German Lost Art Foundation http://www.lostart.de/; Footprints: Jewish Books Through Time and Place, https://footprints.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/; etc. Accessed 20 August 2018.
144.
Edelmann to Zuckerman, 13 February 1947. UA, World Jewish Library.
145.
Carter to Edelmann, 26 January 1948. UA, World Jewish Library.

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Alden Library, Ohio University Libraries, Athens, OH, USA
Miriam Intrator

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Intrator, M. (2019). Non-restitutable Books and the Library That Never Was. In: Books Across Borders. New Directions in Book History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15816-3_6

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15816-3_6
Published: 20 June 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-15815-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-15816-3
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