The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation PDF
Preview The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation
THE HOLOCAUST AND THE BOOK THE HOLOCAUST AND THE BOOK DESTRUCTION AND PRESERVATION Edited by Jonathan Rose UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS PRESS Amherst s p c H B Editorial Advisory Board Roger Chartier Robert A. Gross Joan Shelley Rubin Michael Winship copyright © by University of Massachusetts press All rights reserved printed in the United states of America First paperback printing 8 Lc -8 IsBN 978--849-43-9 set in Adobe Garamond by Graphic composition, Inc. Designed by Milenda Nan Ok Lee printed and bound by sheridan Books, Inc. Library of congress cataloging-in-publication Data The Holocaust and the book : destruction and preservation / Jonathan Rose, editor. p. cm. — (studies in print culture and the history of the book) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) IsBN -849-3-4 (cloth : alk. paper) . Book burning—Germany. . Germany—cultural policy. 3. censorship—Germany—History—th century. 4. Jewish literature—censorship—Germany. . Holocaust, Jewish (939–94) I. Rose, Jonathan. II. series. Z8.G3 H 33.3943—dc -8 British Library cataloguing in publication data are available. This book is published with the assistance of a generous grant from the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation and with the support and cooperation of the University of Massachusetts Boston. Frontispiece: Two children sell secondhand books from baby carriages in front of a watchmaker’s and a grocery store in the Warsaw ghetto. photograph by M. Bil. (YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, courtesy of USHMM Photo Archives) CONTENTS Introduction JonathanRose PARTI DESTRUCTIONANDPRESERVATION I TheNaziAttackon“Un-German”Literature,– LeonidasE.Hill II BloodlessTorture: TheBooksoftheRomanGhettoundertheNaziOccupation StanislaoG.Pugliese III TheConfiscationofJewishBooksinSalonika intheHolocaust YitzchakKerem IV EmbersPluckedfromtheFire: TheRescueofJewishCulturalTreasuresinVilna DavidE.Fishman V “TheJewishQuestion”andCensorshipintheUSSR ArlenViktorovichBlium Introduced,translated,andannotatedby GeorgeDurmanandDonnaM.Farina PARTII CULTUREANDRESISTANCE VI TheSecretVoice: ClandestineFinePrintingintheNetherlands,– SigridPohlPerry vi VII ReadingandWritingduringtheHolocaustas DescribedinYiskerBooks RosemaryHorowitz VIII PolishBooksinExile: CulturalBootyacrossTwoContinents,throughTwoWars SemC.Sutter PARTIII THEREADERINTHEHOLOCAUST:DOCUMENTS IX TheLibraryintheVilnaGhetto DinaAbramowicz X LibraryandReadingRoomintheVilnaGhetto, StrashunStreet HermanKruk TranslatedbyZacharyM.Baker XI WhenthePrintedWordCelebratestheHumanSpirit CharlotteGuthmannOpfermann XII CryingforFreedom: TheWrittenWordasIExperiencedItduringWorldWarII AnnetteBiemondPeck PARTIV PRESENTANDPAST XIII ZarathustraasEducator? TheNietzscheArchiveinGermanHistory JohnRodden XIV ConvivenciaunderFire: GenocideandBookBurninginBosnia Andra´sRiedlmayer PARTV BIBLIOGRAPHY XV JewishPrintCultureandtheHolocaust: ABibliographicSurvey JoyA.KingsolverandAndrewB.Wertheimer NotesonContributors THE HOLOCAUST AND THE BOOK INTRODUCTION JonathanRose THEstoryoftheSixMillionisalsothestoryoftheOneHundredMillion. ThatisthetollofbooksdestroyedbytheNazisthroughoutEuropeinjust twelve years, according to the calculations of one library historian. Of course, this is only the roughest of estimates, which we will probably revise as research progresses. But we can begin with this terrible certainty: the mass slaughter of Jewswasaccompaniedbythemostdevastatingliteraryholocaustofalltime. Historiansofthebookallsharetheworkingpremisethat,inliteratesocieties, scriptandprintaretheprimarymeansofpreservingmemory,disseminatingin- formation,inculcatingideologies,distributingwealth,andexercisingpower.The firstquestiontheyaskaboutanycivilizationishowitsaved,used,anddestroyed documents. From the culture of New England puritanism to the causes of the French Revolution to the implosion of the Soviet Union, this new approach to historyhascompelledustorethinkhowthepastworked.Itcanalso,inthecase oftheNaziHolocaust,helpustocomprehendtheincomprehensible. FilmdocumentariesoftheHitlereracommonlyopenwiththebookburnings ofandfadeoutwiththedeathcamps.Thathasbecomethestandardnarra- tiveframe,thefirstandfinalchaptersoftheThirdReich.Thosewhowitnessed thebonfires,aswellashistorianswhowroteabouttheminretrospect,couldnot helpbutquotethewordsofHeinrichHeine:“Therewhereoneburnsbooks,one intheendburnsmen.” But even Heine’s premonition, as true as it is terrible, threatens to become a platitude if we pursue it no further. Strikingly, most histories of the Holocaust havenothingmoretosayaboutbooks.Wesensethattheremustbeaconnection betweenthebookburningsandthegaschambers,butcanweexplainspecifically howoneledtotheother?Werethosebonfiresanecessarypreludeforwhatwas tofollow,andifso,preciselywhatroledidprintplayintheHolocaust?Though they differ in method and focus, all the essays in this volume confront that question. For many, the answer is obvious: the book has always been the foundation stoneofJewishtheology,Jewishculture,Jewishsurvival.JosephGoebbelsknew thatandproceededaccordingly.TheJewsoftheVilnaghettoknewthatequally
The list of books you might like
