Diane Mizrahchi
Librarian for Social Sciences, Jewish and Israel Studies
University of California, Los Angeles
By using HathiTrust, curators at the Jewish Museum in Prague located several books in the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Library collection that had been looted by the Nazis during World War II. UCLA did not find any discussion of similar experiences among North American libraries, nor any professional guidelines for repatriating material. The speaker will share some historical background of Nazi book policies, how these books reached the UCLA library, the repatriation process the team developed, and why and how the UCLA library are publicizing this case as broadly as possible. As libraries continue the digitization of their holdings, possibilities grow of finding more material of questionable provenance from any area where war and violence have ravaged libraries, archives, and communities. Librarians are on the front line to help rectify these past injustices.
http://bit.ly/uclal-rediscovered
“The Recovery of Nazi Looted Books in the UCLA Library: From Prague to Los Angeles and Back” https://doi.org/10.14263/22/2022/705
Contested Collections: Grappling With History and Forging Pathways for Repatriation (Symposium)