Jewish Cultural Reconstruction (JCR)
A book with the Brandeis Library bookplate, an Offenbach Archival Depot stamp, and the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction bookplate.
You may be familiar with the famous images of Nazi book burnings, however many other Jewish books weren’t destined for destruction, but for an unsettling type of preservation. During World War II, the Nazi government looted countless books both from the collections of private individuals and from synagogues, libraries, schools, and other cultural heritage institutions. They were kept as trophies of war and sent to Nazi research institutes such as the Institut zur Erforschung der Judenfrage (Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question) to establish scientific ‘proof’ for antisemitic ideas such as the genetically “degenerate” nature of the Jewish “race,” while eliminating public access to genuine, reliable scholarship about Jewish history and culture.
Near the end of the war, the United States military established the Offenbach Archival Depot near Frankfurt am Main Germany to house looted materials. They worked to repatriate books to the organizations and individuals they belonged to or their heirs, but many items no longer had an identifiable living owner. The Jewish Cultural Reconstruction (JCR) initiative was formed in the United States to find homes for these books. They were sent primarily to Jewish libraries and other organizations in the United States and Israel, including Brandeis.
The Brandeis Library is now working to identify and fully catalog formerly-looted books in the library's collections so that future researchers can have access to the history of these items. This site tells the story of both the JCR as a whole and the books’ history at Brandeis, as well as how the Brandeis Library is working with libraries and other institutions around the world with collections of Nazi-looted materials.