JantineOn book Broek. collecting Freelance writer, and editor the and spirit academic of resistance writing coach. Sheduring studied Hitler’s English ‘Bibliocaust’LanguageWhispering and Culture at Utrecht University (BA) and Writing, Editing and Mediating at the amemory tale studies and is currently of writing hope a book on the different uses of language in war. University of Groningen (MA). She has a research interest in military history, literature and

During the Second World War, the Nazis carried out violent attacks on Jewish cultural heritage, paying special attention to book collections in libraries, archives and other institutes. This destructive event is now sometimes referred to as the ‘Bibliocaust’. The plundering, destruction and dispersal of many private and public collections by the Nazis’ ideological brigade, Alfred Rosenberg’s ERR, shifts our perception of the Germans as anti-intellectual vandals: their aim was to preserve certain Jewish cultural artefacts to justify their extermination, and destroy the rest. Inspired by an essay on becoming a book collector written by the Jewish writer and culture critic Walter Benjamin, this article investigates what the term ‘collecting’ meant during this chaotic time, how books lost their meaning as a result of dispersal, and how their owners fought back against the destruction of their memory.

Keywords: biblioclasm; book collecting; Jewish heritage; Jewish memory; Nazis

me among piles of volumes that disorder of crates that have been are seeing daylight again after two wrenchedI must ask open, you to the join air mesaturated in the years of darkness, so that you may be ready to share with me a bit of the mood - it is certainly not an elegiac with the dust of wood, the floor covered with torn paper, to join 23

TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 23 30/08/2018 10:22:39 ‘ mood but, rather, one of anticipation 1 later Reichsminister of the Eastern territories,ideological leaderto create of thean NSDAPinstitution and T- whichhese are these the booksopening arouse…’lines of that would showcase examples of the an essay written in 1931 by academicsliterature andto present culture ofresearch the Reich’s that the German-Jewish writer and provedideological the enemies,superiority allowing of the German Aryan philosopher Walter Benjamin, titled race. Rosenberg envisioned at least describes‘Unpacking the My Library:unique A process Talk about of ten branches of this Hohe Schule der collectingBook Collecting’. books, which In involves it, Benjamin a lot NSDAP, with branches specialized inter more than simply buying or borrowing alia in Slavic cultures, Freemasons, them, and he explains how order can be imposed on the disordered nature of a these institutes was to see the light duringand the the Germanic war, given race. the urgency Only one of its of

randomly assembled pile of books. ‘For the Jewish Question in Frankfurt.4 But [the collector],’ explains Benjamin, formission: the research the Institute to begin, for the Research institution on books have their fates. And in this sense,‘not only the booksmost important but also copiesfate of ofa copy is its encounter with him, with needed to know its subject. his own collection. . .To renew the old own Einsatzstab Reichsleiter ARosenbergccordingly, Rosenberg’s desire when he is driven to acquire dedicated itself to collecting books and world – that2 is the collector’s deepest other cultural artefacts (ERR), set from up inprivate 1940, and public libraries all over Europe, newwo things.’ years after the publication of from Amsterdam to Thessaloniki, and from Paris to Kiev. The aim was Tnational-socialist book burnings To this essay, in 1933, the infamous exterminate the Jewish people, but the beginning of a ruthless attack on to study Judaica without Jews; ‘ at universities across Germany signalled Jewish culture and history, perceived preserved as a historical and symbolic by many as an omen of the horrors of not their memory.’ “The Jew” would be in his study The Book Thieves. were among those consumed by enemy,’ writes historian Anders5 Rydell the Holocaust. Benjamin’s own works ‘Their where they had been part of a carefully significance and their crimes’ would assembled,flames, torn extensive from university collection. libraries But be used to justifyAppropriating ‘the merciless Jewish war while this brutal act of destroying scholarshipinto which for the6 their German own peopleideological had literature, which we like to think of as been “forced”.’ fundamentally good, has established up in the literature-loving Weimar the Nazis as anti-intellectual vandals Republicends was fittingand built for the the Nazis, concentration who grew in our collective memory, what was camp Buchenwald around an old oak set in motion once the war had begun was something far more sinister. Plans sat under.7 Chaim Kaplan, a Jewish were made by Alfred Rosenberg,3 the teachertree that from Goethe Warsaw, had once noted supposedly in his

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TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 24 30/08/2018 10:22:40 diary that what was happening was a remained unharmed when the Soviets passed through on their way to Berlin,

clash between two literary peoples: while installing their own totalitarian reign.‘liberating’ cities from the Germans ‘We are dealing with a nation of onlyhigh of culture, material with possessions, “a people but of also the s the plundered books piled up, book”(…)The Nazi has robbed us not the ERR found itself lacking the Amanpower to go through the andof our sword, good and name this as is “the his peoplestrength of hundreds of thousands of volumes and the Book.” 8 The Nazi has both book decide whether they should be kept for research or destroyed. Who better andn this might.’ article, guided by Walter to perform this task than the Jewish intellectuals, artists and academics of Ibooks, I want to take a closer look Benjamin’s thoughts on collecting , which due to its thriving Jewish well as the ways in which the books – community,whom they hadrich plentyhistory locked and up?focus In andthe Nazis’their owners feverish – fought collecting back. spirit, as on new Jewish scholarship had been

The plundering prominent members of Jewish academic practices of the ERR circlesnicknamed such ‘the as JerusalemAbraham ofSutzkever, ’, a

hen the Nazis came to power, of Semitic languages, and Herman the great institutions of their Kruk,poet, a Zelig librarian, Kalmanovicz, were ordered a professor by the Wideological enemies were the ERR to begin collecting, cataloguing, collections for transport.10 Vilnius was centuries-oldfirst to topple. collections In the West,of Ets GermanHaim in homeand readying to YIVO, the the city’s Jewish valuable Research book Amsterdam,officials calmly the surveyed oldest Jewish the priceless, library Institute, and the famous Strashun in the world, and the Bibliotheca della Library, whose collection included some Communità Israelitica in Rome, the city of the oldest and most valuable Jewish home to the oldest Jewish community books, manuscripts, incunabula and in the world – and then packed them letters in the world. Soon nicknamed Die Papierbrigade, these pillars of Jewish culture had been by the ghetto police because of their removed,up to transport they movedthem to on Germany. to the manyAfter relatively light duties,‘the Paperthe academics Brigade’, smaller libraries, including the private were based in the small library that Kruk had turned into a ghetto library at or been arrested. In Eastern Europe, the the beginning of the war, its collection book collections of those who had fled quickly supplemented by books the mirroring their brutal treatment of the ghetto inhabitants wanted or had to get citizensGermans there. adopted The a people less civil were approach, herded rid of.11 into ghettos while many synagogues thirty per cent of the material was to and libraries were simply torched, as be sent off German to Frankfurt, quotas while dictated the other that happened during the Warsaw Uprising seventy was destined for the paper mill. In addition, few buildings Sutzkever commented that he felt they 9 in 1944. 25

TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 25 30/08/2018 10:22:40 Chance and fate saving certain volumes and throwing awaywere others ‘digging of ainestimable grave for ouremotional souls’, s books were separated value.12 from their collections and collections from their owners, eanwhile, in the concen­­ A resurfacing in depots and emptied tration camp Theresienstadt libraries all over the Third Reich, Min Czechoslovakia,­ an Ghetto­bücherei was set up to accommodate all the books that the Rosenberg’s aim as a collector can be official newly arrived Jewish inhabitants explained by Benjamin’s definition of had brought with them. As the term. He sought to fill his Hohe Theresienstadt was primarily13 in­ Schule’s libraries with materials acquired through ‘the chance, the higher social circles, including rabbis, fate, that suffuse the past’, which habited by ‘selected Jews’ from civil servants, and remain ‘conspicuously present’ in academics, the Nazis the resulting ‘accustomedslave labourers confusion had had their pick of toof […]restore books’ order that scholars specialized in to. The assembled and Hebrew dictated that material16 would have and assembled taken decades to another Paper Brigade, thirty‘German per quotas cent of catalogue, and indeed many collections

Bücherfassungsgruppe were found after butofficially quickly callednicknamed the books was to the war still in their Talmudkommando, Vilnius’be sent Jewish off to crates in basements, abandoned churches, group included Czech on railway sidings and Judaist‘Talmud and Unit’. book The Frankfurt, while even on riverboats in collector Otto Muneles, the other seventy southern Poland, stuck as well as Isaac Leo in transit towards Seeligmann, a famous was destined for their great ideological book collector from destination.17 Amsterdam. Many of the books they he fragmentation handled came from the paper mill. ’ of so many Tbook collections had begun to evacuate after the start depots in Berlin, which the Germans14 As a result, Seeligmann came across inevitably resulted, as Benjamin puts hisof frequent own books, Allied which air hadraids ended in 1943. up in it, in a loss of meaning: though a the RSHA depot in Berlin and had now passedcollection’s on by ‘most one distinguishedowner to the trait.next been transported to Theresienstadt to . .will always be its transmissibility’, be sorted. 15 with a “feeling of responsibility toward itshis meaning property”, as Benjaminit loses its states personal that ‘the phenomenon of collecting loses TXT - The Book Issue: History

TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 26 30/08/2018 10:22:40 18 an interpreter of fate, deciding where collecting books laid the emphasis the books would go and why. They owner.’ Rosenberg’s method of were either to be destroyed, erasing He had no any memory of their owners, or to be emotionalon ‘their functional, connection utilitarian to 19the material value - employed in the battle against Jewish hethat was is, claiming.their usefulness’. Nor was he alone in memory and history. This shows that ultimately, the Nazi struggle was not claimed tons of books, many of them about economy or politics, but about this; after the war the Soviet Union Russian campaign, as war booty.20 remember (…) an act of resistance in Thestolen constant by the moving Germans back during and forth the identity, thus22 making ‘the ability to of books and collections divested them of their emotional value. They its ownhe right.’ people who borrowed books had become plunder, perhaps less from the Vilnius ghetto library valuable than food or even art, but Tshared this vision. It became still worth something, if only as a hugely popular despite the frequent prize which the owner could throw in deportations and executions that were

Booksanother man’sas weapons face. andbeing undernourishment carried out between in the 1941 ghetto. and 1943, as well as the overpopulation of spiritual resistance theDuring library a relativelybecame a quiet community period he value of the plundered books centrebetween for January learning, 1942 adding and Julya reading 1943, was perhaps best appreciated room, an exposition space for religious Tby the Jewish intellectuals who artefacts, and a conference room for had to make ad hoc decisions every cultural clubs formed in the ghetto. day about which materials to save The poets of the Paper Brigade would23 and which to give up to the Nazis. In recite poetry during lunch breaks.24 Vilnius, Khaikl Lunski, the owner of In addition, the work of importing, the Strashun Library, was ordered cataloguing, reading and lending to destroy the collection he had books gave the Jewish intellectuals painstakingly assembled over a period hope that even if they perished, their of forty years. The Paper Brigade culture would persist. felt emotionally compromised while 25 throwing away materials they had espite their lamentable loved and studied for years, seeing provenance – many books came from the houses of deported inhabitants – the books them, in Benjamin’s words, as ‘the themselves were an essential means scene, the stage of their fate’ and of escape from the horrendous reality being aware of the ‘enchantment’ of ghetto life. Kruk lamented the encyclopaediaof ‘the whole whose background quintessence of an fact that crime26 and romance novels item [which] adds up to21 a In magic this and Flaubert, but recognized the is the fate of his object.’ were favoured over Dostoevsky sense, Rosenberg’s role as a collector D became what Benjamin referred to as importance of ‘narcotic’ effect that27

TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 27 30/08/2018 10:22:40 reading escapist literature had.27 However, many people also asked secret archive of the Warsaw ghetto, for more serious literature that gave collectingDr Ringelblum, writings who related established to the war, a them a perspective on current events, the occupation and ghetto life. He War and Peace, buried the archives in two sections writings on World War I and the Armeniansuch as Tolstoy’sgenocide, and books about Jewish life and persecution during the right before the uprising; the first wasThe Middle Ages.28 Similarly, the historian urgentrecovered and innecessary September task 1946 of 30these and and archivist Emanual Ringelblum in record-keepers,the second in December carried out 1950. with one the Warsaw ghetto noted that the lack of newspapers turned gives new meaning to many inhabitants on to foot hovering above death’s threshold, the daily horrors or fragmentation isBenjamin’s the collector statement com­ tofiction, comprehend either to escape the that ‘only in extinction historical precedent of so‘The many 31 of their situation. For prehended.’erman Kruk, example, many became book collections who was inevitably Hissued a pass that allowed him to ininterested the account in Napoleon: (…)of resulted, as walk in and out of the the‘The Russian readers delightwinter, Vilnius ghetto without we hope that history being searched, found will again repeat itself it, in a loss of inventive ways to and the end will be the smuggle books and downfall of the Cursed Benjamin puts other artefacts out of their workspace in the 29 emptied YIVO building One.’ hus Jewish intellectuals acrossmeaning. and ’into the ghetto – he once made the Eastern European ghettos Tbegan to rebel, trying to save as managed to save drawings by Marc cultural and literary relics of the past Chagall,a ‘paper wastemanuscripts run’ during from which Maxim he as they could while actively recording the horrors of modern history in Paper Brigade members hid papers underGorki andtheir letters clothes from and Tolstoy. stuffed Other their pockets full of books at the end of Krukthe making. wrote ‘Iin do his not diary, know whichif we arehe keptredeemers right up or to gravediggers,’ his death in a Herman forced- began to retreat from Eastern Europe their work day. As the Germans was liquidated. Sutzkever managed waslabour dug camp up after in Estoniathe war inand 1944 remains and in late 1943, the ghetto in Vilnius oneburied of justthe before most hiscomprehensive execution. It while other Paper Brigade members, and harrowing records of life in Khaiklto flee, Lunski, seeking Herman refuge inKruk Moscow, and the Eastern European ghettos. Similar preparations were made by concentration camps, where they Zelig Kalmanovitz, were sent to TXT - The Book Issue: History

TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 28 30/08/2018 10:22:41 perished before the war was over. 32 By the time the Talmud Unit was a Jewish partisan group and helped frequent exhortations to the Germans. SovietKaczerginski forces andto liberate Sutzkever Vilnius had joinedin July catalogueddissolved in around April 1945,thirty just thousand before looking for the materials they had books,’s labelling capitulation, their spines they andhad 1944. After the fighting, they went writing serial numbers by hand. blacked-out shell with most of its stock 37 hidden, finding the YIVO institute a Conclusion in the ghetto library had been found anddestroyed burnt inby theartillery courtyard. fire. The The books stash been Isaac Bencowitz, the director was one of three out of ten that had Iofnstead the ofbook Benjamin, depot itin mightOffenbach have in the bunker beneath Kruk’s house and Kaczerginski found manuscripts, found in the American-controlled diaries,not been letters discovered; and books. here, ThisSutzkever made partduring of 1946the former – where Third all Reich the bookswere all too clear, however, how33 much they gathered, including almost the entire had not been able to salvage. The

which according to orthodox religious volumesYIVO collection that are – seeingasking daylightus to join again him lawcity’s had collection to be treated of religiouswith the utmost books, in ‘the disorder of crates’ and ‘piles of respect and were meant only to be buried, had suffered a particularly Bencowitzafter two yearsstated ofthat darkness.’ it was hard When to degrading fate. commenting on the nature of his job, sent ancient Torah34 rolls off to leather factories to be made The into Germans insoles hadfor remain emotionally detached: the sorters had brought together, one Jewish partisan found women like‘I would scattered come tosheep a box into of books one fold,that sellingGerman herring soldiers, wrapped and after in theTalmud war books from a library that had pages at a market. once been in some distant town in 35 Poland, or an extinct Yeshiva. There ike the Paper Brigade, the Talmud was something sad and mournful Unit was torn between doing a about these volumes. . . as if they L were whispering a tale of yearning prolonging their task so they would be keptgood alive, job and to seeking avoid persecution,consolation 38 in the few pieces of Jewish culture and hopeespite long the sincemillions obliterated.’ of volumes they were able to salvage, though still found abandoned after the war, in the name of the regime that was the extent of the devastation exterminating their people. Overall was severe. Those materials that 36 were saved39 by the courageous the camp, which was both a blessing individuals of the Paper Brigade and andthey aenjoyed curse. Muneles, a privileged the headposition of the in the Talmud Unit seemed, in the harsh group, witnessed the deportation of his whole family to Auschwitz, but processlight of of post-war restitution reflection, began. relicsThe of a bygone age. A long and difficult was not allowed to join them despite D 29

TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 29 30/08/2018 10:22:41 borders of Europe had been redrawn, Each book had its own fate, decided in Allied soldiers and commanders took the main by its collector in the battle a share of the surplus books they for control of Jewish memory. In our found, and the Soviet government digital age, with its common cry of staked a claim upon everything they found in the Eastern European slippery the slope is when politicians 40 Still, ‘fake news’, it is easy to forget just how several restitution schemes were set up,countries and whilethey hadinstitutions “liberated”. like Ets reclaim cultural artefacts to justify Haim in Amsterdam welcomed back oftheir the policies book forsmugglers, ‘renewing diarists, the old their unharmed collections, other archivistsworld’. If the and persistence librarians duringand courage those institutions were not so lucky.41 Many days teaches us anything, it is surely books were left over because their private owners could not be located, books will outlive any individual or because they had moved during the peoplethat the and emotional represent truths the we hope find inof war or had perished in the Holocaust. endurance.

1 Illuminations: Essays and Reflections W. Benjamin, ‘Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting’, in H. Arendt (ed.), 2 Ibidem. (New York: Schocken Books, 1969), transl. H. Zoch, pp. 59-67 there p. 61. The Book Thieves 43 Books were also sent to smaller and more specialized collections, such as the Ostbücherei or A. Rydell, ‘Foreword’, (New York: Viking, 2017), transl. H. Koch, p. xiii. Amt Rosenberg resulted in a fragmentation during which many collections were irreconcilably splitthe Zentralbibliothek up. (Rydell, Foreword der Hohen Schule. The division of the books over various projects within Ibidem, p. 241. , p. 229) 5 Ibidem. 76 8 Ibidem, p. 242. Ibidem, p. 37. 109 Ibidem, p. 211. Ibidem, p. 197. 11 Ibidem. 12 Ibidem, p. 212. Theresienstadt was a model camp, based in a former garrison and made to look like a ghetto. 13 the Nazis to give the houses a lick of paint, feed the inhabitants an extra ration to make them It was called ‘the city the Führer gave to the Jews’ and a promised visit by the Red Cross led Negermusik thelook Jews. healthier, (Rydell, and Foreword even bring, p. together220). a jazz band, the Ghetto Swingers (jazz was degenerate ‘14 Ibidem, p. 222.’ according to the Nazis) to showcase their tolerant and benevolent treatment of

15 TXTIbidem, - The p.Book 223. Issue: History

TXT_2017-18_FinalDocument_V4.indd 30 30/08/2018 10:22:41 Unpacking my library 1716 Rydell, Foreword Benjamin, , p. 60. 18 Unpacking my library , p. 227; Ibidem, p. 249. Benjamin, , p. 66; Ibidem, p. 67. 2019 Rydell, Foreword Ibidem, p. 60. 21 Unpacking my library , p. 260. 22 Rydell, Foreword, p. 241. Benjamin, , p. 60. De boekensmokkelaars 23

24 D. E. Fishman, (Amersfoort: Colibri, 2017) , transl. J. van den Berg & P. Dal, p. 100. Ibidem, p. 110. Ibidem, p. 165. 25 Ibidem. 2726 Ibidem, p. 104. 28

29 Ibidem, pp. 105-106.Libraries & Culture J.Ibidem. Borin, ‘Embers of the Soul: The Destruction of Jewish Books and Libraries in Poland during World War II’, , 28 (1993), pp. 445-460, there p. 454. 30 Unpacking my library 31 Rydell, Foreword Benjamin, , p. 67. 32 Ibidem, p. 217. , p. 215. 33 Borin, Embers, p. 447. 34 Fishman, De boekensmokkelaars 35 Rydell, Foreword , p. 293. 36 Ibidem, p. 224. , p. 223. 37 Borin, Embers 38

39 , p. 456. theirTo illustrate collections. the (Rydell, scale of Foreworddestruction: according to research, 70 per cent of all books in Poland were40 Rydell, destroyed Foreword or, lostp. 274. during the war; public libraries and schools lost over 90 per cent of 41 , p. 197).

Ibidem, p. 276; Ibidem, p. 270.

31

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