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Holocaust / Who owns these books? By Gish Amit Tags: books, Israel news Gvilim Nisrafim v'Otiot Porhot (Burning Scrolls and Flying Letters: A History of Book Collections and Libraries in Mandatory Palestine and of Book Salvaging Efforts in Europe after the Holocaust), by Dov Schidorsky. Magnes University Press (Hebrew), 551 pages, NIS 115 Between May 10 and June 21, 1933, books were burned at 30 universities throughout Germany. Even though burning books became a symbol of Nazi barbarism and of future atrocities - in the spirit of Heinrich Heine's chilling prophecy, "Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings" - millions of other books were collected and preserved by various bureaucratic units throughout Germany. These Nazi subdivisions actually fought for control of the Jewish collections and the right to establish anti-Jewish museums and libraries. The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem entailed not only the physical annihilation of the Jews, but also the confiscation, protection and securing of their intellectual treasures. Thanks to this "strange lunacy" of the Nazis, as Hannah Arendt called it in her book on the trial of Adolph Eichmann, many cultural treasures of European Jewry were saved from destruction. In the second part of his book, a study of the development of libraries in Israel under the British Mandate, taking in the looting of Jewish libraries in Europe under the Third Reich, Dov Schidorsky relates the fascinating fate of the collections of Jewish books under Nazi rule and their redistribution after the war. In the winter of 1945-46, millions of books that had been saved were transferred to collection points in Germany. Robert Walsh, a journalist sent to Germany by Haaretz, wrote in 1946 that the book warehouse in Offenbach, near Frankfurt, had become the largest Judaica library in the world. Advertisement "Eighty hard-working German clerks, who speak English for the benefit of their supervisors, are occupied in arranging the books on huge shelves," wrote Walsh, who estimated it would take many years for these experts to sort all the material. This Jewish property was the subject of debates and disputes that lasted years and presented the institutions of the victorious countries with serious problems whose solutions involved legal, political, economic and administrative challenges. Stealing for America This is an exciting and complex story, interlaced with parallels and disputes, political and ideological polemic. Its heroes are Jewish organizations from around the world, both Zionist and anti-Zionist, institutions and individuals. In 1947, an organization was founded in New York for the rehabilitation of Jewish culture, and was entrusted with the collection and redistribution of the books. The heads of that organization, Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, which included Jewish historian Salo W. Baron and Arendt, debated at length the issue of the distribution of the property; they had to decide between the contradictory claims, during a time of political chaos and bitter disagreements. In Europe, the remnants of the Jewish communities demanded the return of the books that had been saved, but scholarly non-Jewish Germans were not pleased about giving up valuable Jewish manuscripts. Meanwhile in Jerusalem, a committee for saving the treasures of the Diaspora was set up by the Hebrew University in early 1946. It demanded the transfer of the cultural assets to the National and University Library in Jerusalem. "A major principle in inheritance law throughout the enlightened world," stated the committee, "is that the bequeathers" desire be preserved as much as possible, and this would certainly be the fulfillment of the wishes of the bequeathers, the owners of this cultural property, who fell victim to the persecution of their people, that the Jewish cultural treasures be confiscated from their tormentors-murderers and returned to their persecuted nation as an inheritance and perpetual memorial." In April 1946, Gershom Scholem was dispatched to Europe by the Hebrew University, in order to oversee the shipment of the books to Israel. "We were late by two or three months," wrote Scholem in a letter from Prague to Hebrew University administrator Werner David Senator, "and people here are upset about it. They claim that during that time we could have taken away many things, but that in the meantime a few Jewish and non-Jewish parties came and stole as much as possible for America." Scholem also complained about the Joint Distribution Committee's attitude toward the issue of the books. "I have a feeling," wrote Scholem, "that the Joint, for propaganda reasons, prefers that the books reach America." To a great extent, the question of the distribution of the intellectual assets that survived the Holocaust was affected by the different ways in which the Jews perceived the destruction of European Jewry and the establishment of the State of Israel, as well as the connection between those two events against the background of the question of the ownership of Jewish culture. Schidorsky - the founding librarian of the Tel Aviv University Library, and a scholar of libraries as a cultural agent in Palestine from the end of the Ottoman period until statehood - provides a wonderful description of events during that period. Based on material found in dozens of archives in Israel and abroad, he clearly and precisely portrays the convoluted unfolding of events, which as far as I know, have not previously been properly researched and documented. Still, he writes from a purely Zionist perspective, whereby Israel is the only natural place for the books. Thus the book takes on a teleological quality: Polemic and struggles become footnotes in the tale of grace and rescue that leads from the ruins of Europe to Israel; arguments and confrontations are presented as obstacles to a magnificent effort, and acts of deceit become anecdotes and no more. The title of the climactic chapter, "The Parchments Come Home," is a clear illustration of this. Thus, for example, Schidorsky describes how Scholem collaborated in the theft of books from the Offenbach warehouse and in their transfer to Jerusalem, in contravention of the terms of license granted to him by the Americans. Schidorsky notes that this episode had "unpleasant diplomatic repercussions." Behind his forgiving tone, and without exaggerating the importance of the incident, lies a simple claim: Even though it is not nice to steal, those books actually belonged to us, to the State of Israel, and therefore not only was there no other option, but the whole matter was justified, and in the end remained in the realm of aesthetics. The problem, if there was one, was not what we did, but rather how it looked. The first part of the book describes the development of the National and University Library and other public libraries during the British Mandate period. How are the two parts of the book connected? Mainly in the opposing roles being played out: While we were building here, they were demolishing there; while we were nurturing and protecting, they were pillaging and destroying. "While everything was being done to gather, concentrate and preserve the Jewish heritage in Israel," states the introduction, "the evil Nazi regime in Germany was doing everything to destroy Jewish culture and obliterate its memory by burning and eradicating Jewish intellectual treasures." That equation, however, is not precise. From its very establishment, in 1925, the Hebrew University was also a political tool in the hands of the Zionist movement. The national library not only collected Jewish culture, but also actively participated, albeit in a complicated and ambivalent manner, in marking the borders of this culture. It is impossible, for example, to understand the "Treasures of the Diaspora" effort (as the mission to bring the volumes here was called) in isolation from the changes at the university in the late 1940s - the accelerated departure from the model of a diverse university, belonging to the entire Jewish people, and the recruitment of the institution to David Ben-Gurion's state ideal. What was the intended role of the Treasures of the Diaspora in the context of the national structure and the struggle over the image of the young state? After all, libraries are spaces in which the human spirit dwells alongside its destruction, and the preservation is nothing but the other side of the dynamic struggles over heritage, culture and history. In May 1949, at the end of a visit to the German city of Mayence, Shlomo Shunami, an emissary of the Hebrew University, wrote to Gershom Scholem that the director of the local museum claimed the community there wanted to keep the manuscripts for itself. "This could further complicate matters," wrote Shunami. "What do you think of this chutzpah? These total boors, who are semi-goyim [non-Jews] have no shame about sticking their noses into this Hebrew matter. Soon I will visit them concerning their library and they will hear it from me." That letter, which does not appear in the book, is essential; contrary to Shunami's worldview, the fact that a large share of the books were transferred to Jerusalem is not necessarily surprising or unjustified, but is certainly not to be taken for granted. Gish Amit is writing his doctorate on the National and University Library at the Department of Hebrew Literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Produce problems Jordan Islamists protest imports of fruit grown on 'land taken by Zionists.' Payback time? America's opponents in the Mideast: Financial crisis is divine punishment.

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