Search

Examines the loss of various collections, especially school libraries and the Ezra Library, in Cracow (Poland) during World War II. Highlights include Nazi policies toward Cracow's Jews; the destruction of libraries, archives, and collections; Jewish book collections in the Staatsbibliotek Krakau (state library); and the removal of books by Jewish authors from bookstores and libraries. (Contains 73 references.) (Author/LRW)

This paper focuses on the how and what of library history research, and on the study of rare and historical collections, with the University of Warsaw Library as an example. This library was established in 1817 as part of the Royal University of Warsaw. It also served as an independent public library and was regarded as a national library. Since its foundation, it has received and purchased many valuable artistic and historical collections, including the famous Print Room of King Stanisław August Poniatowski and an exceptional collection of nineteenth-century publications, including Rossica (publications in Russian). The author points out the methods needed for this research and for the reconstruction of lost collections, which should combine provenance studies, bibliographical knowledge and archival evidence with a sense of critical synthesis. Digital humanities and semantic encoding can become new tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Second World War and subsequent changes to state boundaries resulted in significant dispersal and displacement of cultural property, including library collections, located in pre-war Poland and Germany. The former Polish eastern provinces became part of the Soviet Union, and the former German eastern and northern territories were incorporated into Poland and the Soviet Union. The immediate post-war activities of the Communist-dominated government in Poland focused on the establishment of Polish administration and nationalization of German property in the annexed territories as well as the development of safekeeping measures for abandoned and dispersed library collections within new Polish borders. The government actions also included the nationalization of the property of Polish landowners and aristocrats. This article examines the legal basis for the nationalization of so-called forsaken and abandoned property as well as the property of Polish landowners, and the organizational structure for salvaging cultural objects in a broader context of the nationalization of private property and war reparations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]