Badische Landesbibliothek

The Badische Landesbibliothek (BLB), which developed from the library collections of the Margraves and Grand Dukes of Baden, is one of the largest regional libraries in Germany, with an over 500-year-old history. With the air raid on the library building in the night from the 2nd to the 3rd of September 1942, both the library collections and the administrative records of the BLB were almost completely destroyed. However, the library´s treasures, such as manuscripts, incunabula and rare early prints, had already been transferred to various depots as early as 1939, thus surviving the building´s destruction.

According to early research conclusions, Nazi-looted books are still to be found in the library holdings that were acquired immediately after the bombing raid and with financial support from the Reich and Land authorities responsible for the later reconstruction. The initial sampling efforts revealed several suspicious cases.

Since the library collections were arranged according to the number of accessions, and no distinction was made based on the respective mode of acquisition, the complete library collection must be screened for Nazi-looted books. The information given in the accession journals on acquisitions since the end of 1942 is incomplete and does not adequately represent the actual acquisitions. A large number of these volumes do not have any proof of origin in the library inventory, so that evidence of provenance can only be obtained by conducting an autopsy on the individual books.

Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe
Erbprinzenstraße 15
76133 Karlsruhe
http://www.blb-karlsruhe.de

Email: vogl@blb-karlsruhe.de oder syre@blb-karlsruhe.de
Tel. +49(721) 175 2240 /-2270
Fax: Fax: +49 (721) 175 2333

The Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum Library

In the collections of the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum Library are books that came from stocks of Nazi-looted cultural goods. Attributes such as bookplates, stamps, autographs and dedications indicate the former owners of the books. Among them are individuals and institutions that were persecuted between 1933 and 1945 and forced by the Nazis for political and / or “racial” reasons to leave these books behind before emigration or deportation.

These books arrived in the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin Library — mainly Judaica in German, Hebrew and Yiddish — in the early 1990s through transfers from the Berlin Central and Regional Library and the Berlin State Library to the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin, as a way of helping support the establishment of the Stiftung library. A smaller portion of these books had been donated by citizens who found them, for example during renovation work in attics or during the dissolution of their grandparents’ household effects, and subsequently gave them to the Stiftung Neue Synagoge.

Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin
Centrum Judaicum
Stephan M. Kummer
Oranienburger Straße 28/30
10117 Berlin
www.centrumjudaicum.de

Email: stephan.kummer@centrumjudaicum.de
Tel. +49(30) 88028 415
Fax: +49(30) 88028 483

The Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg - Albert Einstein Library

The Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg was founded in 1979 by the Central Council of Jews in Germany. The library received extensive donations and bequests, particularly in it's early years of existence. About half of the total stock of books dates from before 1945. Initial checks showed that a considerable part of it has provenance features that give rise to suspicions of Nazi looted goods. Since the beginning of 2019, a part of the library's inventory (the bequest of the late Rabbi Emil Davidovic) has been subjected to intensive provenance research as part of a research project funded by the German Lost Art Foundation / Deutsches Zentrum Kulturgutverluste

he Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg - Albert Einstein Library

Hochschule für Jüdische Studien
Bibliothek/Provenienzforschung
Landfriedstraße 12
69117 Heidelberg
http://www.hfjs.eu/forschung/index.html

Email: philipp.zschommler@hfjs.eu
Tel. +49 (0)6221 54192-14
Fax: +49 (0)6221 54192-09

Institute for the History of the German Jews

English translation coming soon...

Aufgrund der systematischen Vernichtung des jüdischen kulturellen Erbes in der NS-Zeit fehlte es in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland an judaistischer und jüdisch-historischer Fachliteratur in den bestehenden Bibliotheken. Die Einrichtung einer Spezialbibliothek war für das 1966 gegründete Institut für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden (IGdJ) deshalb von Anbeginn ein wichtiges Anliegen. Durch Buchkäufe bei Antiquariaten im In- und Ausland oder Schenkungen von Gönnern und befreundeten Institutionen wurde in den letzen fünf Jahrzehnten ein Altbestand aufgebaut, der über 8.000 Bücher umfasst.

Ein dreijähriges Forschungsprojekt hat ergeben, dass sich in diesem Altbestand der Bibliothek des Instituts für die Geschichte der deutschen Juden NS-Raubgut befindet. Besitzvermerke wie Exlibris, Autogramme und Widmungen weisen auf die früheren Eigentümer der Bücher hin. Darunter sind Privatpersonen, die von den Nationalsozialisten verfolgt und gezwungen wurden, diese Bücher vor der Emigration oder Deportation zurückzulassen oder zu verschleudern. Außerdem wurden Stempel zahlreicher jüdischer Gemeinden und Institutionen gefunden, deren Bibliotheken nach der Reichspogromnacht im November 1938 beschlagnahmt worden waren.

NS-Raubgutprojekt
Institute for the History of the German Jews
Beim Schlump 83
20144 Hamburg

http://www.igdj-hh.de/forschungsprojekte-leser/ns-raubgut-in-der-bibliothek-des-igdj.html

Email: joern.kreuzer@igdj-hh.de
Tel.: +49(40) 42838 8045
Fax : +49(40) 44808 66

The Freie Universität Berlin University Library

It has been known since the late 1980s that looted cultural and war booty items were to be found in the Freie Universität Berlin University Library. Since the early 1990s, returns had been made to the current rightful owners. In 2013, the University Library began its commitment by setting up a consulting and coordinating body for the specialized libraries of the Freie Universität Berlin. The office for Nazi-looted cultural goods and war booty offers libraries the possibility of checking their findings and initiating returns.

From 2015, through financing from the German Lost Art Foundation and Presidium of Freie Universität Berlin, parts of the University Library will be systematically checked over the next two years for cultural goods that had been seized through Nazi persecution.

Freie Universität Berlin
Universitätsbibliothek
Stabsstelle NS-Raub- und Beutegut
Garystraße 39
14195 Berlin
http://www.fu-berlin.de/sites/ub/ueber-uns/raubgut/index.html

Email: restitution@ub.fu-berlin.de
Tel.: +49(30) 838 71568 / 71764
Fax: +49(30) 838 454224

The Potsdam University Library

The Potsdam University Library was founded in 1991 with the University of Potsdam. It integrates stocks of predecessor institutions such as the Pädagogischen Hochschule Karl Liebknecht and the Akademie für Staats- und Rechtswissenschaft of the GDR. The stock of the University Library has now grown considerably. If the inventory of the predecessor institutions contained hardly any books that point to Nazi-looted items, the situation changed with the establishment of the Jewish Studies Program in winter semester 1994. The building up of an appropriate library collection has been carried out since that time, primarily through donations, antiquarian purchases and presentations. In this area, volumes with suspicious Nazi-looted provenances are expected to be found.

In 1995, the acquisition of Israeli librarian Dr. Israel Mehlman’s collection added works of the Kabbala, Hasidism, and Yiddish and Hebrew collections of folk tales and liturgical writings to the collection. In 1997, the University Library received the private library of the former chief dramatic advisor of the Bucharest Yiddish Theater, Israil Bercovici. The library of Dutch Rabbi Prof. Yehuda Aschkenasy, acquired in 2005, also contains a large number of volumes that show traces of being Nazi loot. This relates to partial stocks from the Veitel-Heine-Ephraimschen School: rare Rabbinica from the 16th century, religious-philosophical treatises from the Middle Ages, Kabbalistic writings and more.

Universitätsbibliothek Potsdam
Dr. Andreas Kennecke
Am Neuen Palais 10
14469 Potsdam
http://www.ub.uni-potsdam.de/ueber-uns/projekte/provenienzforschung.html

Email: kennecke@uni-potsdam.de
Tel: +49(331) 977 2533 / 1289
Fax: +49(331) 977 2292

Berlin Central and Regional Library

The Nazi-looted cultural goods arrived via diverse and not yet fully known routes into the holdings of the Berlin Central and Regional Library (ZLB). Today, the ZLB consists of the Berlin City Library (founded in 1901), the America Memorial Library (built in 1954 in West Berlin) and the Senate Library. The work of the Nazi-looted cultural goods research of the ZLB is to review suspicious stocks, identify stolen books and determine their origin, with the aim of returning them to their owners or heirs. The search since 2010 has so far focused on the holdings of the Berlin City Library. A documented purchase of approximately 40,000 volumes from the last homes of deported Jews in Berlin in 1943 and over 20,000 “gifts” in the postwar period with deliveries containing Nazi loot from the “Salvage Center for Academic Libraries” suggests that a large proportion of Nazi loot is to be expected here. However, random samplings show that all three departmental libraries of the ZLB have stolen books in their stocks.

© ZLB | Collage diamond-gestaltung

Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin
NS-Raubgutforschung
ZLB Postfach 610179
10922 Berlin
https://www.zlb.de/en/subject-information/special-area/provenienzforschung.html

Email: raubgut@zlb.de
Tel.: +49(30) 90226 733
Fax: +49(30) 90226 718