What do you think?
Rate this book
Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book
The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation
Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany systematically destroyed an estimated 100 million books throughout occupied Europe, an act that was inextricably bound up with the murder of 6 million Jews. By burning and looting libraries and censoring "un-German" publications, the Nazis aimed to eradicate all traces of Jewish culture along with the Jewish people themselves.
The Holocaust and the Book examines this bleak chapter in the history of printing, reading, censorship, and libraries. Topics include the development of Nazi censorship policies, the celebrated library of the Vilna ghetto, the confiscation of books from the Sephardic communities in Rome and Salonika, the experience of reading in the ghettos and concentration camps, the rescue of Polish incunabula, the uses of fine printing by the Dutch underground, and the suppression of Jewish books and authors in the Soviet Union. Several authors discuss the continuing relevance of Nazi book burnings to the present day, with essays on German responses to Friedrich Nietzsche and the destruction of Bosnian libraries in the 1990s.
The collection also includes eyewitness accounts by Holocaust survivors and a translation of Herman Kruk's report on the Vilna ghetto library. An annotated bibliography offers readers a concise guide to research in this growing field.
The Holocaust and the Book examines this bleak chapter in the history of printing, reading, censorship, and libraries. Topics include the development of Nazi censorship policies, the celebrated library of the Vilna ghetto, the confiscation of books from the Sephardic communities in Rome and Salonika, the experience of reading in the ghettos and concentration camps, the rescue of Polish incunabula, the uses of fine printing by the Dutch underground, and the suppression of Jewish books and authors in the Soviet Union. Several authors discuss the continuing relevance of Nazi book burnings to the present day, with essays on German responses to Friedrich Nietzsche and the destruction of Bosnian libraries in the 1990s.
The collection also includes eyewitness accounts by Holocaust survivors and a translation of Herman Kruk's report on the Vilna ghetto library. An annotated bibliography offers readers a concise guide to research in this growing field.
328 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Jonathan Rose
66 books14 followersJonathan Rose is the William R. Kenan Professor of History at Drew University. His fields of study are British history, intellectual history and the history of the book. He served as the founding president of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing, and as the president of the Northeast Victorian Studies Association. His The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, won the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History, the Longman-History Today Historical Book of the Year Prize and the British Council Prize. He is co-editor of Book History, which won the Council of Editors of Learned Journals award for the Best New Journal of 1999. He held visiting appointments at the University of Cambridge and Princeton University and he reviews books for the The Times Literary Supplement and the Daily Telegraph.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 18, 2009
I really do not recommend reading this book unless you are truly interested in the History of the Book and Jewish literature. This is a collection of scholarly articles on various aspects of the treatment of Jewish literary works by the Nazis. The efforts of some persons to save documents of great historical and cultural value, and those that died in the effort. There is an excellent bibliography.
Displaying 1 of 1 review