LOT 47:
A Hebrew-German dictionary, a copy looted by the Nazis and marked with the letter J
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A Hebrew-German dictionary, a copy looted by the Nazis and marked with the letter J
Handworterbuch uber das Alte Testament mit des biblischen Chaldaismus - Hebrew-German dictionary for terms from the Bible ['Old Testament'] by Wilhelm Gesenius, Leipzig 1815 - a copy looted by the Nazis and marked with the letter J - jew.
From the rise of the Nazis to power in January 1933 until the end of World War II, Nazi party agents systematically looted works of art, jewelry and silver and gold objects, books and Jewish Religious articles .This looting took place by a special unit specially designated for this purpose Called 'The 'Kunstschutz' ("Art Defense Units'). Most of the looting took place during the war itself. Millions of books were stolen by the Nazis and nearly two million of them made their way from Western and Eastern Europe to the "Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question" in Frankfurt. This institute, founded by Alfred Rosenberg, the chief ideologue of Nazi rule, was part of his grandiose plan to establish a network of research institutes for Nazi studies under the supervision of an academic institution for Nazi studies. He received the blessing of Hitler who wanted to start setting up a library, and intend to run the institution only after the war, when millions of books are constantly 'flowing' to the 'Institute'. Despite this, the institute in Frankfurt began to operate already during the war, and during the Holocaust its library was the largest "Jewish library" in Europe, and some of the books of the Jews who were looted and came to the library were marked with the letter J.
Towards the end of the war the 'Institute' was forced to send most of the books to the town of Hangen due to the bombing of Frankfurt, and at the end of the war they were found there by the American forces. In order to take care of these books and many other books that continued to be discovered in warehouses and other basements, they were all taken to a warehouse in Offenbach, where they were handled by a Jewish officer named Seymour Pomeranz who managed to return about a million books in just a few months. The army sorted the books into the hands of German workers, who took care of packing them and sending them back to their countries of origin.
The format and color of the letter "J" that appears before us is exactly the same format in which the Nazis marked the letter "J" on the Jewish passports from October 5, 1938.
720 p. 22 cm. Good condition.