All you do is water plants all day. Okay you guys, so I have the most common assumptions about me in this computer and I'm gonna read them and then we're gonna clarify some things. So the first one is you went to university but gave up your career to run your YouTube channel. And I'm very happy that you brought this up because I can tell you this has been an idea that has been in my head for a long time even before I quit my job. So when I was deciding whether to quit or not because this was one of my worries that if I quit that job I would be giving up my career. And I can tell you some of this assumption is true but I would not agree with the whole assumption and I'm gonna explain why. So yes, I did go to university and I studied history. So I have a master's in history specifically on 20th century European history focusing on Holocaust studies. So yeah, you would say that is not closely related to plant care. And then I graduated and I got a job at an international organization here in Berlin that was closely related to my field but not completely related because I studied history. This is more a political organization. So, but yeah, it was a similar field. And then two years ago, I decided to quit my job and start this YouTube channel on plants. Now you would say, okay, Lucia. So then yes, you did keep up your career but I can tell you that I don't see it that way. In fact, I see it as embracing my career when I quit my job. So as I said, I was studying the Holocaust when I was in university. And one thing that stayed with me was one conversation that I had with, to be honest, the best professor I've had in my life. And this conversation was after reading a book on a perpetrator. So the book was an interview with this perpetrator. In this interview, you see that this guy was a normal human being that was just taking steps towards a big atrocity. And he saw them as small steps but then he became what he is now, right? A Holocaust perpetrator. So I was talking to my professor and I was telling her, okay, how can I make sure me and Lucia not to fall into that so we can prevent this from ever happening again? Because this guy was a normal human being and I feel I'm a normal human being. So how can I prevent myself from pulling into that? And she said something to me that I keep in my heart, in my mind and I hope I can keep it with me for the rest of my life, which was that it's very important that we are conscious about where we are standing and the people that we surround ourselves with and the ideas that we listen to and the words that we use, that we're conscious about where we stand in life and that we question where we're standing. So this came to me during the time that I was working in this international organization. I felt myself that I was not close to the people that I was supposed to be helping. I was really far from them and I'm not talking about only distance but also we were not talking to them. Yeah, it was just very far from the human being. So I just didn't feel proud about my job. Me personally, of course, I'm not going against the organization, I'm just saying that me personally, I didn't feel proud about what I was doing there and I questioned where I was standing and I was questioning my actions. So I decided that this was not my path and I wanted to follow another path. So I decided to leave that and come to this path and talk about nature, something that gave me peace and I thought that I could bring that to other people and just embrace that with other people. And I can tell you that, okay, other than bringing many skills that I learned in my career to this channel and to this work that I have now, I would say that the biggest part of Plans en Lucía was that, how it began. And it began with me questioning where I was standing and what I wanted to do with my life and what I wanted to do on this planet. And this was something, I think is the most important thing that I learned in my career, to really question where I stand and question my actions. So yeah, I would say that when I did that, I really embraced my career and embraced exactly what was important about that and what was important about what I studied. And I hope that I can do that every day and every day of my life. So yeah, so I would say that, yes, yes, you could say that I gave up some parts of my career, but I think that I embraced the most important part of it. Okay, so number two is as you work as a teacher or something related to kids. And this is a pretty good assumption because, okay, first of all, this is not true right now. I'm not a teacher right now, but I used to be a teacher. So I taught English and Spanish in Czech Republic for some time. And yeah, I can tell you this was one of the best jobs I've had in my life. It was really rewarding. I really liked working with people. And one thing that I learned when I was a teacher was that every student is different and every student learns in a different way. So it was really interesting and very rewarding to find the way that each student would learn and what helped them. What I learned when I was a teacher, I still apply here in Plants and Lucia. So sometimes I read your comments or your questions as if we were in a classroom and then you guys were asking me a question. Or for example, if you say that sometimes some comments are like, okay, maybe you would text here will be easier or can you please add some visuals here? And I really take that into account when I'm making the videos because it really feels like when I was preparing classes for my students, when I was a teacher before, now I'm preparing these videos and I really wanna make them as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. So yeah, that was a good assumption. I'm not a teacher anymore, but yeah, I used to be and I used to love it. Okay, so the next assumption was a very popular one and this one is related to language. So some of you assume that I don't speak Spanish. Some of you said that I do and I speak also French and other languages. So I'm just gonna put all of the assumptions here. And yeah, so let's clarify. My mother tongue is Spanish. So I do speak Spanish. I speak Spanish fluently. I come from Mexico and obviously I speak English. This is because my family and I moved to Canada when I was 15. So that's when we learned English and this is why I also have an accent when I speak, when I speak English. And I can tell you that when we moved to Canada we had a rule in our household. So my parents told us that we had to speak Spanish in the house and this was because they were afraid that we would forget the language, which tends to happen when you are speaking only one language.  So I'm grateful that my parents had that rule because then we could just speak Spanish in the house and keep practicing that language. And then outside of the household we would speak English. So yeah, those are my two main languages. Then we live in Germany. So I can speak a little bit of German. I've been studying in Germany but it's a difficult language. So I'm still learning. But let me see, I can say something in German. Now I'm learning German because I live in Berlin and it's very good for me. Okay, I still have a very strong accent I think. The German speakers out there, I'm sorry, you can let me know. But yeah, I'm really trying to improve my German and I can tell you some tips that I use to learn languages. So for example, one thing that I'm doing now is I'm listening to a podcast. This is a German podcast. I mean, it's a podcast to learn German and it is called Coffee Break German and it's a very good podcast. They speak some English in the podcast but then as you progress, then the later episodes, they speak more German. So it's really helpful. And if you're learning another language like Spanish, French, Italian, I think they have for all of those. So Coffee Break Spanish, Coffee Break French and Coffee Break Italian. And they have other languages, I think, but I'm not sure. So that's one tip that I can give you. The second one is, I think I've said it before in this channel, we have vocabulary around the house. So we have stickers on different things in the house and then these stickers are color coded. So this is to help us with gender because in German, we have three genders. We have feminine, masculine, and neutral. If you speak Spanish, you know that we have feminine and masculine, but yeah, that has helped me a lot just to remember the genders of the different things that we have around the house. And what else? Yeah, you can also read books in the language. So I have some books in German. I would recommend if you're just starting maybe getting books for kids. And this really helps you just get better with the vocabulary and just practicing the language and understanding. And you can also see some shows on TV or some movies. I tend to watch comedies because these are really easy to understand and I always put a comedy that is in German and then with Germans of titles. So this also helps you also practice the language. Okay, so the next assumption is all you do is water plants all day. And okay, yes, I mean, not every day because we don't wanna overwater our plants. But yes, when I water my plants, I have a watering day. Most of the time now is Mondays. It used to be Saturdays, now I'm doing Mondays. But yeah, so every Monday I check all of my plants and I separate the ones I need watering and then I filter the water to water my plants and then I water the plants and I clean the leaves. So this can take some hours, especially if you have many plants like us. So yeah, I would say that that assumption is correct but not every day, just the only watering day, yeah. It can be most of the day. And I would love to know how long you take to water. So how many plants do you have and how long does it take you to water? So just to see and also share our experiences. So also comment below, I would love to know about that. The next assumption is that I don't drink beer even when I live in Germany. And yes, to the beer lovers out there, I'm sorry, but yes, I don't drink beer. And I usually drink Radler here in Germany if it comes to beer. And this is basically beer with lemonade. So yeah, it's not completely beer, but it's a little bit of beer. It can be a problem because I'm dating a Czech guy. Jan also doesn't drink so much beer but in Czech Republic beer is really big as well. I don't know if you know this but if you go to the Czech Republic, beer is cheaper than water. And I'm not joking about it, this is literal, like literally beer is cheaper than water. So, and it's a very big part, not only of German culture but also of my partner's culture, which is a Czech culture. So yeah, but unfortunately I don't drink beer. I can drink other kinds of alcohol like wine or other stuff, or Bejerovka, for example, from Czech Republic. But beer, no, not for me. Okay, another person said that I love to cook and this is a great assumption. I do love to cook. It's just like plant care. You take your time and learn a recipe and I really love it. I love to cook Mexican food. So here we make even our own tortillas. I love making my own salsas with different chilies. So I use guajillo or chile ancho or chile de arbol, of course. So yeah, we like to make our own salsas and our own Mexican food. And now I'm getting a lot into Indian food as well because I've noticed, and if there are any Indian people out there watching this video, let me know what you think about this. But I've noticed that the spices in Indian food really come me down. And also, for example, I love masa dachai. So that also comes me down. So I don't know if it's in my brain or if it's actually true. So if that's the experience with you, also let me know. But yes, I do love to cook. And if you know any vegetarian recipes or any vegan recipes that you love, please let me know in the comments below. And yeah, we will try them here. Okay, you guys, so this was the video on assumptions about me. If you liked it, please let me know in the comments. But yeah, thank you so much for sending your assumptions about me to me. And yeah, I hope that you liked the video. And as always, I will see you in the next one. Okay, ciao.


Okay, so I think it's time to get started. Welcome everybody to our symposium, the university, the UCLA library and the international and area studies department. Welcome you to our symposium contested collections grappling with history and forging pathways for repatriation. My name is Jadal Burrow. I'm the librarian for Southeast Asian Studies and Pacific Island Studies here at UCLA, and I am also one of the colleagues for the symposium's planning team. So before we get started, I just wanted to mention a few things. We are recording this event. You should have gotten that notification. There's closed captioning available. If you want to enable that function, you click on the CC button. And if you want to submit questions to the speakers and moderators, please use the Q&A feature because that's the one that will be monitoring. And if you have technical difficulties, contact us via chat to the host and panelist and we'll try to figure that out for you. So, this morning's program is entitled, Returning Home, Reclaiming Nazi Looted Jewish Materials. And so this is the order of the day. After I do this opening, we will have welcome remarks from Virginia Steel, our university librarian. I will introduce the moderator, and she in turn will introduce each speaker and then the speakers will do their presentations. And then after that there'll be a moderated discussion, and then after that we'll have a Q&A. So, that is what is happening. And so, without further ado, I do want us to get started. And so here are some remarks from Virginia Steel, our university librarian. Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us for this symposium, Contested Collections, Grappling with History and Forging Pathways for Repatriation. My name is Ginny Steele, and I am the Norman and Armina Powell University Librarian at the UCLA Library. Today, I would like to acknowledge that as a land grant institution, we at UCLA acknowledge the Gabrielino Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tobongar, which includes the Los Angeles Basin and the South Channel Islands. And with our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, we believe that understanding the historical and current experiences of indigenous peoples informs the work we do. So again, thank you for coming today. We're really happy to have you here as we open this discussion about repatriation, particularly repatriation as it applies to materials that are held in libraries and archives. As many of us may have realized when thinking about the general topic of repatriation, much of the discussion we've heard over the last several decades has focused on artifacts in museums and art held in museums and galleries. But there's been relatively little attention paid to materials that are in libraries and archives. At UCLA, we were contacted a few years ago by a Jewish institution in Munich to return a book to our collection that belonged to their library but was looted by the Nazis. We gladly returned the item but didn't think much more about it. Last year we were contacted another time, a second time, this time by the Jewish Museum in Prague. A curator there contacted Diane Mizrahi, our librarian for Jewish and Israel studies. They had identified three books through Hathi trust that rightfully belong to their library. The scanned images and Hathi trust included their property stamps and accession numbers. When Diane communicated the news to her colleagues in the international and area studies department in the UCLA library, their outreach team led by Jade Alburo felt that it was important, not just to share what UCLA is doing in repatriating these books, but to use it as a jumping off point to initiate a broader dialogue about repatriation, why there's a need for it in the first place, and why it continues to be a difficult and complicated discussion. This symposium provides a more global context for this conversation by acknowledging the long history of colonialism, war and even field research that has led to cultural heritage materials being taken from their communities and countries. As libraries, archives and other cultural memory institutions begin to talk about decolonizing their collections, it is crucial to recognize that decolonization is not just about adding underrepresented voices to our collections. It's also about understanding how materials in our collections came to be there, how they were obtained, whether they were taken from their original owners without their consent, and whether and how they should be returned to the communities and individuals from whom they were taken. In this symposium you will hear about various issues related to repatriation, including notions of ownership and caretaking. You'll hear examples from museums and libraries, because we hope that many institutions will be interested in exploring and implementing reparative practices. You will also hear examples of existing policies and procedures that institutions and government agencies have put in place. And we'll have some ideas for working with the communities that own the materials in the first place. We're very happy to have you with us as we explore this for ourselves and determine what our next step should be. At the UCLA library we are very committed to restitution and we do expect to do more in the future. We hope you will be too. I'd like to thank everyone at UCLA who's been involved in the planning of this symposium, Jade Alburo and Tula Orem for leading the planning team, as well as members Elena Ising, Dana Laterer, and Yesenia Perez. Additional thanks to Sharon Barb, Shannon Tanhai Ahari, Giselle Rios, Magali Salas, the library communications team and library business services. And thank you to the UCLA Allen D. Levy Center for Jewish Studies for cosponsoring this symposium. We appreciate all the hard work of all these individuals and the contributions that have been made, and we thank you for bringing us all together. Thank you to our viewers and members of the audience. Thank you again for joining us today. I look forward to continued discussion with many of you as we all try to figure out what the best way is to approach the need for us to look at our collections and materials that were taken without consent from their owners and return them to the communities and individuals where they belong. Enjoy the symposium. Thank you so much, everybody. And thank you, Jenny. And so now it is my great pleasure to introduce to you our moderator, Dr. Renato Fuchs. Dr. Renato Fuchs is a lecturer of German language and literature in the Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies at UCLA, and a freelance translator, writer and editor. Her research areas include German Jewish literature, Holocaust studies and intellectual history of German romanticism, along with its relevance for today. Her publication appeared this year in the Oxford Handbook of Women Philosophers in the 19th century, and her book of translation about the last survivors of the Warsaw ghetto uprising is available in the special collections of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Everyone, please welcome Dr. Renato Fuchs. Thank you for the introduction. Many thanks to the UCLA library for organizing this critical symposium on repatriation and inviting me to moderate this panel of historical significance and I'm truly delighted to be here and to help with the discussion. I want to introduce to you our first speaker, Dr. Lisa Leth. She's a historian of European and Jewish history, specializing in the history of Jews in modern France. She's a professor of history at American University. She is the author of Sacred Bonds of Solidarity, the rise of Jewish internationalism in 19th century France, also of colonialism and the Jews, and the archive thief, the man who salvaged French Jewish history in the wake of the holocaust, which received in 2016, Sammy Roar Price for Jewish literature. She also directs the Mandel Center at the United Space Holocaust Museum, a research institute dedicated to advancing the field of holocaust studies around the world. Welcome Dr. Lisa Leth. Thank you everyone and thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. And thank you so much to the organizers for putting this together. I'm so thrilled to be part of it. Today, I'd like to focus on the story of the restitution of books looted from Jews by the Nazis, a restitution effort that was led by the Allied forces in the aftermath of the war. I want to focus especially not only on how and why these books got looted by the Nazis, not only how and why the Allies dedicated themselves to returning those books. But also, and maybe most importantly, I want to put the focus on the Jews who cared so very much about those restitution efforts. And why as a result of the, these organized Jewish efforts to do something about that loot, these books, mostly wound up in places far from where they had been looted in the hands of new institutions, rather than returned to where they had come from. I want to begin with the Nazis though, so that you understand how Jewish books were looted. At the end of this is actually a photo of allies. At the end of World War Two, the allies recovered material looted from the Jews by the Nazis. And this is a picture of an allied leader with some of the loot that they recovered. The Nazis looted all sorts of things from Jews. They took precious objects from synagogues. They also took many things from individuals. Perhaps what you're most familiar with would be high value items like art. They also took musical instruments. They also took items from very humble people items like household property pots and pans furniture. They also took books and archives. They took these materials from libraries of individuals so families that had extensive collections saw those entire book collections looted. They also took from synagogue libraries and they took from very large Jewish community archives and libraries, places where Jews studied and did research. Nazis looted for three major reasons. First of all, when it came to high value items like art, they looted to sell some of these items to finance their efforts. Another aspect though of the plunder was, you know, we have to consider that looting is part of the genocide.  So taking away Jewish cultural treasures was part of that effort.  They saw Jews as their enemy and they thought that it was really important to study the enemy based on their own sources. At the end, the Nazis built what was to that time, the largest Jewish library in history centered in Frankfurt. It was called the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question. And on this slide, I'm showing you the stamp that they put in the books that they gathered in this institute. And then, you know, today just first throughout the world, you can find books that Jewish books that have been through this looting and restitution process and the telltale side of it is this stamp. I want to step back for a moment. So that's the Nazi moment. But I mean, in order to understand why this matter the other thing the other side of this is the question of why these collections existed in the first place right. The libraries were an important part of modern Jewish life in the 20th century. Jews always cared about books. Jews call themselves the people of the book. But the idea of a library that goes beyond religious sources and has, you know, all sorts of literature produced by Jews. This is more of a 20th century phenomenon. And we see it emerging across Europe in many different settings where Jews had begun to see themselves as more than just a religion, also a civilization that was worth studying in its own right. And in many Jewish subcultures, we had scholars and journalists using libraries to study who the Jews were it was in a way a part of the modernization of Jewish life. Here is a picture of the largest Jewish library in Europe, the Allianz universe cell, the Allianz University University cell library in Paris, as it looked on the eve of the war. During the war with the invasion of the Nazis, Jews across Europe worked hard to protect these collections. We see it in many places. This is a picture from Vilna, where Jews were put in ghettos at the end of 1941, and a number of Jewish librarians and cultural leaders were given the horrible task by the Nazis of going through the most important libraries in that city. You know, Vilna was home to two of the most important Jewish libraries in Europe, the Streszion Library and the YIVO Library. So, when the Nazis came to Vilna, they employed a slave laborers, Jewish librarians, and gave them the horrific task of sorting through those libraries to decide what items should be sent to that Nazi in Frankfurt, and what items should be destroyed. And so here is one of those Jewish librarians doing that horrific task. This group of Jewish librarians is remembered as the paper brigade. They acted very heroically and, you know, disobeying Nazi orders risked their lives to hide and save many items from being pulped percent of the Nazis burying them underground in the Nazis. And this is just one of many cases that we know of, of Jews trying to protect their libraries from Nazi looting. There are cases in Germany, there's a case in Amsterdam, there's cases in France. It's really something that happened across Europe. So that's the wartime part of the story. Allies knew, so the Americans, the Soviets, the British, they knew that this was happening. Jewish refugees who had made it to New York were very aware and were writing in newspapers and petitioning the allies saying, it's not only the Jewish people are being destroyed, it's the Jewish cultural institutions are being destroyed. And if Jews are going to exist after the war, we're going to need those. And they were compiling lists of institutions, including libraries that were at risk. That's why the allies knew that this looting was happening. And in 1943, already during the war, the allies came together in London and made a pledge to return everything they found to the people from whom it had been looted. So unprecedented in history, level of commitment to restitution. This meant that when they ran across Nazi loot, and I'm talking here about art about high value items that were found in castles, but I'm also primarily going to talk to you about books. When the Americans and the British ran across this stuff, they knew they couldn't just ignore it. They had pledged themselves to restitution. So what they did initially was bring it to what they called collecting points. There are three different collecting points in occupied Germany. And what I'm showing you here is the picture of Offenbach archival depot. This was the center for the restitution of looted Jewish books. And it was located in a warehouse outside of Frankfurt. Frankfurt made sense as a place for this because that's where that Nazi institute was. The largest number of Jewish books already were and Offenbach was a small town on the outskirts of Frankfurt. By the time all the looted books were found and brought to Offenbach, we are talking about three million books that the allies had pledged that they would return. This was a daunting task and the allies knew from the start, they didn't really have the capacity to do what they had pledged. They knew that most of the individual owners were probably dead. They also knew that most of the libraries and synagogues from which the stuff had been stolen were destroyed. So this made them think about their task in a certain way. So they thought back to the principles, the basic principles of international law for dealing with such things. And the legal principle that they operated on was actually already in that inter-allied declaration of 1943 it was what they had pledged themselves to, which was the idea that if the individual owner could not be found and you wanted to do restitution. It would go to the country from which it had been looted. But when it came to Jewish property, this legal principle, it didn't fit quite right. Let's take this one case. Here's a railroad car full of books that in 1946 were being returned to Poland. In World War Two, at the beginning of World War Two, the largest Jewish community in Europe was Poland, but 90% of Polish Jews were killed in the Holocaust, 90%. What would happen to these books being returned to newly liberated Poland? And these books in Jewish languages that the majority of Poles couldn't read wouldn't appreciate what would happen to them when they were returned. It wasn't a problem everywhere in some countries this principle did work well for the purposes of restitution. Let's take the example of France. In France, 75% of Jews survived the war, and the institutions that had held library collections also survived. For that reason it was possible for the French state to actually appoint as representatives the librarians who had worked with those collections. So one of the people that was sent to Offenbach to find French books was Rabbi Maurice Libert. I'm showing you a picture of him here. He was the director of the Rubinical School of France, France's main seminary. When he went to Offenbach himself, he identified the collection of from his very institution, and it was returned to his institution that way. While he was there, he also recognized the collection of that library of the Alliance Israeli Universal, and that collection also was returned. In the case of France, France considered the Luda Jewish books to be French collections, and that facilitated their return. But it didn't work as well in the case of Eastern European libraries, which were the majority of what was found in Offenbach Jewish refugees who had made their way to New York were very vocal in petitioning the US State Department and saying what you're doing isn't going to work. They were upset for a number of reasons. One was as I already alluded to when we talked about Poland. Jewish population was really devastated in Eastern Europe and it was hard to imagine sending Jewish books back to countries that had no Jews. And also, many of these Jews in New York were very anti communist. They were also very worried about materials being sent back to the Soviet Union, where they imagined Jews in the West like themselves would have very little access and they didn't trust the Soviet authorities to make them available to Jews. And I would say, you know, the trouble underlying the whole thing here is Jews were targeted by the Nazis as a national minority. And yet the law was really made for nation states and it was very hard to do restitution to a national minority that an international minority that had no standing in international law. And that was the problem of the airless books, even after everything had been returned to the places where the countries where they come from. There were 500,000 books left that authorities in Offenbach just simply didn't know where they came from. What would happen to these. I want to say something about the staff and often box because it's very interesting, the Allied authorities wanted to bring in people who could read Jewish languages in order to deal with these Jewish books. So they put a man which were in Hebrew or Yiddish languages that other allies couldn't read. So they put a man one of the leaders was a man and Captain Isaac Bankowitz himself, an immigrant from Eastern Europe and Jewish who could read these languages. This is the one who presided over this this at this troubling time when things were being returned to the countries of origin and I just wanted to show you a quote from his diary that shows some of the challenges that that this process had for him and I'm going to read this middle paragraph. I would pick up a badly worn Talmud with hundreds of names of many generations of students and scholars. Where were they now or rather, where were their ashes in what incinerator where they destroyed. I would find myself straightening out these books and arranging them in the boxes with a personal sense of tenderness as if they belong to someone dear to me, someone recently deceased. He's very identified with these books. Right. He sees them as Jewish books and he's not able the law isn't able yet to doesn't have a policy for restitution that could return them to Jews. They're returning them to the countries of origin. Facing the same sense of despair other Jews who weren't in positions of authority and often bought took things into their own hands. This was the case with Jerusalem based scholar Gershom Sholam who was originally himself from Germany. He simply took restitution matters into his own hands. He traveled from Jerusalem to Germany. And he went to Offenbach. He was allowed in ostensibly to help identify what they were finding because he was an expert in medieval mysticism. As he read through these manuscripts and looked at what they were. He surreptitiously put them in piles with Roman numerals one, two, three and four, one he thought were the highest value items. And he put them in these piles and left them there. Later a friend of his Rabbi Herbert Friedman went into Offenbach and simply boxed up the number ones and had them illegally shipped to Jerusalem, where they're now part of the Hebrew University library. When the law didn't seem right. People like Gershom Sholam and he wasn't the only one simply took matters into his own hands to get these Jewish books back into Jewish hands. Another example of this is two other scholars Lucy Davidovich and Koppel-Pinson, both New York based intellectuals who worked for the Joint Distribution Committee which was an aid organization to help a Jewish aid organization to help Jews that worked a lot with the DPs with the displaced persons. They made their way to Germany to help the displaced persons. They came into Offenbach and got permission to borrow 25,000 books, ordinary books for use by the DPs while they were stuck in these camps. They never returned them. Again, when it just seemed like policy didn't map on to what was right. Some Jews who could took matters into their restitution matters into their own hands. And then a final, the most legal strategy was adopted by a group of New York Jewish intellectuals who had been content, you know, these were the people who had been complaining to the State Department that this policy wasn't right. This was the group around the journal Jewish Social Studies. They formed a nonprofit organization in 1947 that they call Jewish cultural reconstruction, and they lobbied the State Department to return at least the airless books to Jews rather than to European states. Here's what Hannah Arendt wrote about it in a publication from 1946. She wrote in view of the wholesale destruction of Jewish life and property by the Nazis reconstruction of Jewish cultural institutions cannot possibly mean restoration in their original form, or in all cases to their previous location. Ultimately, it may seek to help redistribute the Jewish cultural treasures in accordance with the new needs created by the new situation of world Jewry. What she's saying here is these books were stolen from Jews, those Jewish communities are now destroyed. Jewish life in Europe with would not be rebuilt. And that meant that the Jewish books should go to new locations where Jewish life had a future. They succeeded in 1947 Jewish cultural reconstruction was given the right to distribute those 500,000 airless books. And they did what you would expect given Hannah aren't views as expressed here. They took them out of Europe and distributed them to new homes in collections where they felt Jews could use them for research or community building. These were synagogue collections and research libraries in Israel in South America in South Africa in Australia and most of all in North America. The only trace that remains of that history of that strange restitution is the book plates. You can find them in Jewish libraries across the world, though rarely in Europe itself because the beneficiaries were largely outside of Europe. You probably didn't know it before but it is so important. It helps us understand what got these books to where they are, and the difficult ethical and legal problems that these books posed for the allies after the war. At that moment of the reckoning over the restitution Jews felt that it, the law wasn't mapping on to what was right. In this case a crime committed against a non national minority under a lot meant to deal with nation state. For those Jews involved, I want to, you know, end here with that question of what did this work mean to them. This quote from one of the people involved in Jewish cultural reconstruction he said the repatriation of the identifiable books and articles resemble the return of kidnapped children to the former homes and the embrace of overjoyed parents who awaited them. I'm going to stop that quote there though you can keep looking at it. If you're involved in these restitution efforts, these books were orphans, these books needed new parents and those parents had to be Jewish, and if those Jewish parents were outside of Europe, the books would leave Europe. Again, tells us something about how Jews understood the genocide and how they could reconstruct. I'm going to end here with a picture of Ben Gurion, the Israeli leader walking with Rabbi Herbert Friedman, Rabbi Herbert Friedman was that friend of Gershwin Sholans who had helped surreptitiously stick take stuff out of often Bach. He also accompanied Ben Gurion to visit the DP camps. The, I wanted to show you that these two efforts was inextricably linked in the minds of these Jewish leaders. Friedman said, saving these books amounts to saving the people of the book. Right. And if that future of the people of the book was outside of Europe. That's where restitution would take place. Thank you I'll stop there. Thank you very much, Dr. Lev. We are moving on to the next speaker, who is Michael Buszek. He works as a Jewish studies researcher at the Jewish Museum Prague. He studied at Charles University in Prague and holds a master's degree in biblical and Jewish studies from the faculty of Husay theology. He has been researching thesis on problems of Shoah in Judaism. Since 2001, he has been researching the provenance of the books. He oversees the agenda and database of original owners of the books and researchers of library history. He is a writer at the Jewish Museum in Prague. He has designed three exhibitions and cooperated on establishing permanent exhibitions. He's a member of the expert panel for property transfer from the collections of the Jewish Museum in Prague. Welcome Michael Buszek. Hi everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to participate in this symposium and to share our experiences. The provenance research of libraries and book collections was many years wrongly neglected and I'm happy that the last few years it received the same attention as an art object. Jewish Museum in Prague engaged in provenance research for many years. Important part of the provenance research makes documentation of museum losses and searching for the losses. The historical core of the book collection of the Prague Museum has made up by the library of the Jewish region community in Prague. Let me start with short history excursion. I still found the library of the region community library in Prague was taken in 1858, and it was the donation of the book collection of the philanthropist Isaac Kousek, but provide the impetus for founding the library. The library had expanded with additional donations from important figures of Prague's Jewish town as such as Sorabiy Ithbales, Rabilandau, or above, all of Rabi Prabhakor. Whose collections remain separate from other books in this library. The library first opened its doors on April 20, 1874. And after some relocations, the library was housed in the Jewish town hall, and it continued to grow with the addition of valuable collections, the most important being purchased from Kopelman Lieben whose library remains separate from other books too. Here you can see the library. In 1912, the library was joined by Tobias Jakubovich, the author of a book on its history and on several articles on its most important volumes. He was instrumental in putting together the library's cards and bound catalogs. In 1922, he became the library manager, remaining in his position under the library was confiscated by the Nazi authorities. In the articles from 1938, he states that the community library continues about 25,000 books, which were divided into three groups, America, Judaica. Michael, excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt, but we don't see your PowerPoint. Oh, sorry. Can you see now. Yes, now thank you. There should be like a slightly different view because we see the slides on the side now. The bound catalog of America and Judaica were completed in the same year. And it was followed by the car catalog in 1939. The community library remained in operation until the start of Nazi occupation in March 1939. It was then confiscated by the Nazi authorities and eradicated. Jakubovich became the head of research at the newly founded Central Jewish Museum, so called War Museum. And he was there till October of 1944 when he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was perished. We do know much about the fate of the community library during the Second World War. Post-war archive materials show that the collection was split up for unknown reason, and that parts of it were moved to other places in Prague and as a rare in protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Upon its returns, it became evident that the library had suffered considerable losses, especially its old and reprinted books. It was usually vile, the writer and the member of post-war Jewish Museum who arranged for the takeover of the community library as early as May 1945. In his report, he shares an information from the head of the Oriental Institute about the fact that the community library, part of it, was located in the building of the Faculty of Science in Prague. Yereval found the books built on the floor in the auditorium. Before the end of the war, Nazis wanted to burn them. While also discovering that parts of the community library had been taken to the village of Kaut, Mildomarica, and to the Zata Koruna Monastery, where they were still located. Yereval visited the monastery on August 1945 and confirmed that part of the community library mostly Hebraica, so called Dero. The reports dating from the years 1945-46 refer to a box of reprinted books deposited in the basement of Shatoko, which was during the war used by German army and after the war served as a base for US troops after the liberation. The researchers did not allow access to Shatoko before the departure. The museum's director Hannah Volatkova herself went there to look for the books but did not found them. The article proof has been found that the box of books have ever retrieved. It may be assumed that the books were taken by the US army or were relocated to another institution. One of the books of community library was hampered by a lack of funds meant for a transport. A portion of the community library located in Prague was taken by the Jewish Museum in 1945. The books stored in the monastery were transferred in the autumn of 1946. The major books were tracked down and handed over to the museum in the following period from different Prague institutions. Due to a constant lack of staff and storage space, it was not possible to check out the community library for a comparison with the pre-war catalogs. The books in the library were not arranged until shortly before the public opening of the museum's library. After the opening of the State Jewish Museum in 1950, Otto Muniz became a leading figure of the library and the Jewish community library remains separated from the other book collection of the Jewish Museum. The State Jewish Museum ceased to exist in November 1994 when its collection were transferred to the Federation of Jewish Religion Communities in the Czech Republic. It replaced them in the Re-established Jewish Museum in Prague, which in 2001 were relocated to a building next to Spanish synagogue, where new depositories were built. During the transfer of the book collections, an inventory of missing call number was carried out, which also involved the community library. And again, this library remains separated from the other books. As mentioned, lots of books were missing from the original community library, so let me now tell you something about searching for the missing book. One of the tasks of the Jewish Museum library is to construct a history of the community library and to track down missing books for the purpose to confirm that they were not destroyed during the war. In regards to the period of the State Jewish Museum's existence, we have only sporadic information about the recovery and return of books from the community library. During the communist regime, no search for books from the community library was undertaken outside the Czech Republic. This was also the case in the first years following the Velvet Revolution of 1989 when the museum's main focus was on building depositories for its collection and on renew, creating new exhibitions. The intensive search for books missing from the community library has been underway for the last few years in a more systematic way since 2018. This was created largely by internet development, because of the digitalization of collections, intensive programs in search concerning library collections, especially on European continent, the emergence of online databases of owners and also online auction sales. The identification of the community library books is made possible by clear and conclusive provenance remarks. Our efforts to identify books from the library and to document their provenance are aided by research into the Jewish library, into the community library as well by the extant catalogs and the various related information that has been published before the war. The next step in identifying future is the community stamps. During its existence, the library used five different stamps with both Czech and German inscriptions. The stamps was mainly placed on the title and last pages of books and on the front cover of periodicals. All the books were given their own core number corresponding to the catalogs entry, which was printed on the title page, and on the label attached on the cover of spine. The oldest and the rarest Hebrew printed books, mostly designed only by letters H and B, was not freely available to library users. These were set aside from the core number series. In addition to records of books from important private collections, specifically to which library they came from books from market with the letter B for the real tech and with the name of donors. It appears on the book and also on the catalog card. This was a test to the provenance history of books of community library for some of the rarest printed books in the library. The provenance was further documented in the published articles by Tobias Jakubovich, who wrote about the collection. We refer to all about, we refer to all about mentioned futures when searching for books that are missing from the community library. Let's look at the basic way how to how do we search for the last books, books. Books missing from the community library may appear in antiquarian bookshops auction houses and online auctions. When viewing the items for sale we checked to see if it has a stamp of the community library. The first step that we must do is ask to withdraw the book from the sale, because if it will be sell to some individual to be again lost. Negotiation for return of a book where it depends on whatever it's offered for sale directly by the auction house, or bookshop, or if it's because this negotiation usually let lead to its return. In case of mediated sale we are in touch with the processor with whom the negotiation might be, however, a little bit complicated. Hi Michael, it's Tula. Michael, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but would you mind clicking on the slide with the stamps, please, on your presentation. Thank you. It's people are very eager to see it. And unfortunately we're stuck on this first slide. Thank you. You're welcome. The next slide involves existing database with information about identified original owners, which is searchable by provenance, the relevant database records contains bibliographic information relating to each books, the name of the original owner and the name of institution when the book is currently located. On the basis, the name of the library is in direct in the search book search box, which in the case of the positive result presents a list of two that were found. We then contact the relevant institution and enter into established by a record from the library pre-book catalogs. Online catalogs, online library catalogs are another source for information we use when tracking down missing books. The catalog records for books may describe the original provenance in our case, information stating that the book in question contains community library stamp. Such information is only rare included in the catalog records. That's why we very often need to have to look at the scans of the title pages or entire books for visual check. This is a record for a book from the community library. We then initiate the negotiation for its return. All the mentioned search methods have led us to the recovery for several missing books. Negotiation have taken various lights of time, sometimes several years. I can move a little bit forward. You can see the catalogs of Hebraica and Jidaica, the pre-book catalogs made mostly by Jakubowicz. No, please click on the slide, Michael, if it's slide five or six. One of the rarest printed book, owned by the Jewish community library, which was not returned after its confiscation by the Nazi authorities, was the nation edition of the Hebrew Bible, Mikrat Bidolot, often called Rabbinic Bible, which was published by Daniela Bomberg between 1516 and 1517. The community library copy was kept separate from the original funds. That's why it has no core number, but it has a stamp. The Bible was incorporated into an important large private collection, the Balmadenatras library. Prior to itself through the New York branch of Sotheby's, the Action House contacted me with their request to identify the ownership stamp on the book. Michael? Yep. Hi. I'm just going to stop you for one second. Perhaps, could you take your cursor and click on the slide that you're actually talking about? You see on the left hand? Because what we see is the initial slide that says JCLP 1935. So which slide are you on in your presentation? I'm now showing Sotheby's Action House. Did you see it? No, we cannot. I don't know what's the problem. You see? No, perhaps, would you mind stop sharing your screen and try again? I'm sorry, everyone, but there we go. Yes, now we stop. Yes, Sotheby's Action House. Is that where you are? Yeah. Perfect. Yes. Thank you so much. I'm sorry for interrupting you again. Sorry, everyone. I'm very sorry for the problems. I don't know why. No, it's perfect. Please continue. After several years, as you can see the image of the stamp was not very easily. You cannot see it very well. But when we ask for more information about the books and some more pictures, we could clearly identify that these books are from community library. After several years of successful negotiation, the biblical Bible returned home to Prague. You can see another image of the book, also with the record from catalog and also with the mentioning in article written by Yakuza. Another rare book from the Community Library turned up at the auction held by Kirstenbaum and Company in New York. The volume in question is a reference of the first edition of the Hebrew grammar book published by Daniel Bomberg in Venice in 1523. In addition to ownership stamp, the book also contains a code number, which we shaped it with the record from the Community Bank catalog. The process for negotiation for the return of the book were held in collaboration with the claims conference and the World Jewish Restitution Organization. Another book from the Community Library were also offered for sale by three auction houses in Jerusalem. The first of these auction houses were business unlimited. The second sale was Kedem Auction House, which offered three books printed in Prague in 16th and 17th century. Prague Hebrew printer's production is very important for us, as the museum focused on Czech jewelry and sculpture. The oldest of these works, Shalot and Shibot Hageonim, was published by Prague publisher Mordechai Kershomakohen in 1590. The last sale from Israel was Kedem Auction House, offering books mostly from 18th century. Providence to search for books in library holdings has been under way for a longer period of time in Europe than for example in USA. Germany in particular has been rigorous in researching the provenance of collections and has been active in returning books to their original owners. The major German state and university libraries are already publishing the result of their provenance research into database-looted cultural assets. The first institution to have initiated the transfer of books from Community Library to Jewish Museum was the Freie Universität Berlin. Excuse me, would you please move this slide to where you're speaking right now? Because it's still on the slide number 17 and it looks like you're moved on with the presentation to a different topic. Is it better now? Now we're on 12, so if this is what you're talking about that would be correct, I'm not sure. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. The books that have been identified in the above mentioned database will be returned to Prague from Hochschule-Fergidische Studie in Heidelberg. The representatives of the funds in the library catalogs are from USA as well from Europe. In Germany we have identified one of the library catalogs of the Universitätsbibliothek Gießen and it will return to museum this year. Two books are in Stadtbibliothek to Berlin and in this case too the Berlin State Library has agreed to hand over these books. Negotiation in the United States are also progressing well. Six 19th century printed books have been scored in the catalog of the University of California Los Angeles Library. You will hear more about it from Diane. In addition, we have identified 29 books from the community library in the library catalog of Washington University in St. Louis based on provenance data available on the website of the Schengel-Breitzman collection in the Jewish studies. They are mostly 19th century printed books and they also include books from 16th and 17th century. An agreement has also been reached with this university library and the books will return hopefully this year. And I hope you see the Schengel-Breitzman catalog with the entry mentioning Prague is very good to undermine the bibliotheque. Over the years, some of the books from the community library has been incorporated in the collection of Jewish institutions outside the Czech Republic. In these cases we have to put forward our arguments and established our claims to the books with respect and in a more intensive way. The legitimacy of our claims is often put into question by the role and mission of the current processors of books. It's because they consider themselves to be the rescues of Nazi planned Jewish property and the successor of heirs of Europe's former Jewish communities and institutions. We argue that the private Jewish community was active not only during but also right after the Second World War and immediately searched for its confiscated property, which is why Jewish Museum insists on its claims to recover the books. We trust that we will be able to recover the energy feed books that are missing from the community library. In so doing, we will move closer to our goal and mission of owning and making available to the public the community library in its most authentic form. Thank you for attention and sorry for some technical problems. Thank you, Michael. Now let's move on. The next speaker is Dr. Diane Mizrahi, who completed her master's of library science degree at by Ilan University in Israel. Her thesis explores the concept of library anxiety. She began working at UCLA in 2002 and is currently the social sciences librarian and librarian for Jewish and Israel studies. Diane completed her PhD and information studies at UCLA in 2011. Her most of her research and publications focus on information literacy and students, print and electronic reading behaviors, but she's currently immersed in the history and impact of Nazi looted books from academic libraries. Welcome, Dr. Diane Mizrahi. Thank you and thank you everybody for joining us today. I'm actually broadcasting from my brother-in-law's place in Perakhtikva Israel outside of Tel Aviv, but I'm very excited to be with everyone today. So we have heard from the earlier speakers about the history of the Jewish Museum in Prague and its library and some context of books in the Holocaust in general. I'm going to speak to you about the efforts the UCLA library has made to return six looted books to Prague. To start with the initial communications from the Jewish Museum, then the steps we devised to verify and repatriate the books, how we believe they came to be in our collection, how and why we are publicizing this case, and our goals for the future. In June 2021, I received an email from Mr. Ivan Kahout, curator at the Jewish Museum in Prague, explaining that I have using Hathi Trust, an online full text database. He identified three volumes in the UCLA library with ownership stamps and accession numbers matching their 1939 catalog. This library was one of the tens of thousands of libraries across Europe that were looted by the Nazis during World War II, and the reconstituted museum was trying to rebuild their original library collection. He gently requested our cooperation in returning these volumes. We have three books, all works of Judea in Hebrew, Sephirah Geonim, Sephirah Sherwishin, and Yesod More, and you can see clearly on each title page, the ownership stamp of the Jewish Museum, and at least on Yesod More on the right, you can see at the bottom. 2020 that is the progs accession number. In the digital communications, we have uncovered three more books in our in our collection that belong to Prague. Two of them we found using Hathi Trust, and a second one, which is top so fair here in the middle. I found among a backlog of unprocessed material. The first one we found there in the middle is a Hebrew book on Judea cat, and the other two are volumes in French. Again, on the title pages you clearly see the ownership stamps of the museum and Prague, and you can see two of the accession numbers at the bottom down here, and over here. So what do you do. Well, this wasn't the first time as we heard from University Library and Genie Steel. The first time that the UCLA library was asked to repatriate a Nazi looted book. In 2019, Jenny, the, who is the Norman and Armina Powell University librarian received an inquiry from the Jewish community in Munich, asking for the return of a treatise on the topic of which was published in Ansbach, Germany in 1844. It had been part of the community libraries that was looted by the Gestapo during Kristallnacht in 1938. It was stated that it was unclear how the UCLA library acquired it, but it must have been sometime before 1986 when we cataloged it. There were no procedures, protocols or workflows in place at UCLA to handle this request, and then administrators did not find any professional literature that could provide guidance. There were identified steps in consultation with the leaders of the various units that had had a responsibility for any aspect of the book's life, while it was here at UCLA, including our acquisitions and metadata services preservation and the southern regional library facility SRLF, which is the storage facility on campus that provides space for materials from across the UC system. All items in process in question were checked physically and verified by finding the Prague library stamps and the accession numbers that match the corresponding entries in their pre World War II catalog. After the print verifications, every page of the electronic copies were compared to their physical originals to ensure completeness and legibility. Thus, UCLA scholars and others will continue to have access to the truest digital versions possible. We decided to rescan one of the volumes in order to improve its legibility. The book from the backlog will be scanned and entered into Hathi Trust. On WorldCat, which is a comprehensive catalog of libraries worldwide, we found that at least one other institution holds a copy of each book, and therefore our volumes are not singularly unique. We amended our catalog to show that we withdrew the physical copies and to provide links to the digital versions. Our conservation and preservation department checked and treated each volume as needed to against insects or mold or any damage that could be repaired. And we asked the Prague curators whether they wished for us to remove all signs of UCLA ownership. They said no, and we happily agreed. The books could have been inadvertently damaged during any erasure process, and the UCLA signs add another chapter, so to speak, to each book's history. Here on the upper left side. This is from the original 1939 catalog and the first entry on that in that catalog just enlarged down at the bottom is this history of Jewish doctors, which was printed in Brussels in 1844, and it has the accession number of 7055. And here we see the book, the title page of the book as it is in our collection with the ownership stamp and the matching accession number and this is how we verified the physical books. So how did they get to UCLA. Well, at this time we cannot determine precisely how the alluded books ended up in our library, but we can make some well founded assumptions. Here after the war, Western allies were left with a quandary of what to do with all of these millions of books. The US Army established the Offenbach archive depository, their official policy was to return material to their owners or descendants or the country of origin. It was fine when the owners could be identified and located, but most of the material were orphaned works their owners or heirs, could not be identified or found, which raised all kinds of ethical issues. After the army left, the work was continued by the Jewish cultural reconstruction organization. And after many negotiations, they decided to distribute the orphaned works to the National Library of Israel, and to universities and institutions in Jewish communities in North America, Australia, South America, and elsewhere. At the same time, however, as we heard from Professor left, many libraries, institutions, commercial enterprises and individuals sent their own representatives to Europe to scour among the remains for items, their collections and inventories. It's also possible that among the along the years, as some books were purchased by collectors and book dealers from the Nazis during the war, or taken as souvenirs from by allied soldiers or others and then sold to dealers or donated to collections. We believe that UCLA acquired the Prague library books during a major purchasing campaign in the 1960s. It was established in 1919 and is therefore is a relatively young research university Jewish studies began only in the 1950s. As interest in Jewish studies grew and more courses were offered. The library needed to expand its resources to support scholarship and coursework. It was in a fortunate financial position to purchase significant amounts of material in the 1960s. The purchase to the collection was the acquisition of the entire inventory of 33,520 volumes from the Bamberger environment bookstore in Jerusalem, which closed business in 1963. The purchase was initiated by Professor Arnold band, and was enabled by a generous gift from the Cummings family of Beverly Hills. The items from that purchase are now distinguished as the Cummings collection with an identifying book plate. One of the Prague library books contains that book plate indicating that it was acquired in this transaction. At that time, UCLA assigned sequential accession numbers to each book as they were acquired. The Prague items discovered so far have a similar UCLA accession numbers, which are very close in proximity. This indicates that they were acquired around the same time when our library holdings were only about 2 million volumes. Today we have over 12 million volumes. They were all obtained and processed in the early to mid 1960s. It thus appears that the Prague library volumes were purchased from booksellers and dealers in Israel and elsewhere, but further investigation is needed to ascertain more precise information. Here are snapshots of the UCLA accession numbers from each of the six books that we are returning. And you can see they started<PHONE_NUMBER>09 to 100211. That proximity, again, is the indication that they were acquired right around the same time. And by the number of volumes in our collection at that time, it was we deduced that it was the 1960s, the mid 1960s. On the left, this is an article from the Los Angeles Times dated April 19th in 1963, which details the acquisition because it was very big news. On the right, we see the book plate designating the books that were part of this Cummings collection. This one is from Sefer Hegeonim, one of the books that we are returning to the Prague library. As we began this process, the UCLA library understood that the repatriation of not saluted books from academic library collections is a vital ethical issue. Unlike the previous occasion, we decided to publish this case as widely as possible, and expand upon the topic in a series of events. With the current rise of anti semitism and Holocaust denial worldwide. And because of continued book censorship in the United States and elsewhere. It is imperative to remind our public of the crimes that were committed. The ongoing process of restitution efforts in libraries and museums and demonstrating a commitment to this process is crucial. As of this writing, our library has been engaged in several events and programs. Last week, we held a symbolic handover event with a council general from the Czech Republic. It was highlighted by a video from the curators at the Jewish Museum in Prague, and remarks from representatives of the Israeli Council that this is a picture from that event. The event was intimate, only about 25 attendees, but we have since reported it through various social media, the library communications and the UCLA campus weekly newsletter in order to inform broader public. simultaneously, my colleagues mounted a beautiful online exhibit detailing the story of our repatriation efforts. If you haven't had a chance to view it I highly recommend doing so. Maybe to look and put the URL up for that for the, for the exhibit. These days served as a catalyst to broaden the discussion of repatriation and restitution of items from communities worldwide through this symposium series, which is sponsored by the library, and in collaboration with the L and D Levy Center for Jewish studies. We've written academic articles which are currently under review, as well as proposals for upcoming conference presentations. The library is developing plans to review our holdings for uncovering other material of questionable provenance and I personally am convinced that we will find many, many more. It has become apparent that the staff throughout the library system should be vigilant for provenance signs. Subject specialists, catalogers, members of digitization teams, special collections staff, acquisitions, international interlibrary loan staff, preservation specialists, student workers reshelving books and others may all come across such material at some time. They may see an ownership stamp in a volume, but not realize its potential, or they may overlook it entirely. So we plan to raise awareness among our staff by creating and distributing a graphic or poster, in which we would illustrate various ownership stamps from looted collections, and remind staff to contact the relevance subject specialist for further clarification, if found. As libraries everywhere continue the digitization of their precious works, opening them up to scholarship worldwide, the possibility of finding material of questionable provenance grows. This issue goes beyond recovering Nazi loot. We must be aware of the possibility of finding material in library stacks from other areas where war and violence have ravaged libraries, archives, and communities. Members of the art and museum worlds have been grappling with these issues for decades. Some European libraries have created collaborations for restitution, but it is time for North American librarians to step up as well. A couple weeks ago I was privileged to to converse with two members of the International Forum on Judaica provenance. This forum is a recent initiative of the National Library of Israel, and the Association of Jewish libraries. They have brought together 13 curators and scholars from art, law, history and Judaica from seven countries with the goal of developing a white paper of recommendations. This white paper could serve as a model for other communities as well. So now in full circle, nearly 80 years after the well, after the war, the library has this opportunity to play a small part in helping to rectify an historic injustice. The process has been immensely satisfying on a personal and professional level for me and I believe my colleagues as well. In these pictures you see the ancient synagogue in prop on the left, and on the right, you see that's me inside the ancient synagogue with a local in a survivor of the Teresa Stutt concentration camp. So I want to thank you all for joining us with this moment today. Thank you. Our last speaker is Russell Johnson who has been curator for history of medicine and the sciences at UCLA library special collections since 2008. He holds master's degrees in physiological psychology now known as behavioral neuroscience and library and information studies. I've been honored twice as UCLA librarian of the year in 2009 for building a collection of baby record books which opened up a new area and historical childhood studies and in 2019 for mentorship and outreach, including not not worthy teaching with rare and unique materials. Welcome Russell Johnson. Thank you. The story I will tell in a short time is just an outline on March 31 1933 a boy two girls and their grandmother traveled by train from Stuttgart Germany to Switzerland. After that evening they were followed by automobile by their parents, Alicia Hirsch, and the 38 year old decade long head of auto rhino laryngology or the ear nose and throat department at the Marianne Hospital in Stuttgart, Dr. Cesar Hirsch. Today the hospital notes that their first chief doctor of the halls Nazan Orden clinic, the note that throat nose and ear clinic was the first Jewish physician at the hospital who must flee from the Nazis. His mother's son, Peter, related that his mother said his father was harassed by the person whose house they had bought, and this person was seen in an SS uniform. This also was the eve of the announced economic boycott of Jewish owned businesses and the offices of Jewish professor knows. Peter told us quote the month my mother said that no one in our family would be safe, and she insisted that we leave immediately. If we had not left our family history would be quite different. The Stöperstein or Memorial stumbling block, one of the more than 800 in Stuttgart. Now marks where Hirsch's house stood at 60 Birkenwald Strasse. After he and his family fled 1933, the Gestapo prevented friends from removing and delivering belongings across the border to him, and then seized his property. The family went, the family went from Switzerland to France, then to New York where this where the children's last name was changed to Hearst in a move to assimilate. In 1939, Dr. Hirsch went on to Seattle ahead of his family obtaining licensure in the state of Washington, but the offer to join an existing practice was withdrawn, and he ended up in a small Seattle office with hardly any patients. In 1940, at the age of 54, having given up hope, Dr. Hirsch completed his fluke on Dintot, his death, his flight into death by suicide. That's in so much more because of investigative work by Hans Joachim Long. As a journalist then for a tubing and newspaper, he was researching without success what happened to the library there of Goethe scholar Ludwig Spiro. In 1999, Long stumbled stumbled on a reference to Cesar Hirsch, an unfamiliar name to him and his books in the tubing and library holdings. He later told us quote, I found a biography of Georg lay the director of the university library from 1921 to 1947. In his biography, I found these two simple sentences quote, moreover, in January 1938 the confiscated library of Jewish immigrant, Dr. Cesar Hirsch was transferred by the Stuttgart Gestapo to the university library for temporary safekeeping. The private library which contains valuable periodicals on ontology was turned over to the university library in 1940 for 1000 rights marks. Long found that the Gestapo delivered 29 crates of Hirsch's books to the university library in 1938. In 1940 the library kept and shelf marked or labeled some of the confiscated books and journals for its collection, and sold duplicates to the second hand shop for 400 rights marks. There's no remaining record and what happened to these reprints DC's and other books. In 1949, Cesar's widow and son Peter Hearst started pursuing some restitution for the confiscated house and its contents. In 1939, Long used internet based directories to find Peter living in California and contacted him about the story he was publishing. Everhard Scheich, the rector of Tubergin's University then offered Hirsch's heirs the return of library, which had not been in the original 1933 house inventory by the revenue office, and the ball was rolling. I must emphasize the spirit of cooperation that brought the collection to UCLA. The swirer at UC Berkeley reviewed the assembled volumes in Germany in April 2000, graciously welcomed by the director of the library at Tubergin. Karen Butter at UC San Francisco where Peter's her son was and is on the medical faculty, considered the books and journals and then referred them on to us. Kathy Donahue and Allison Bunting accepted the collection in March 2001 as a physician's working library of chiefly late 19th and early 20th century medical books in German, English, French, Italian and Spanish, many which we did not have. The volumes are mostly mundane, there are no treasures. But that in itself shows how routine and methodical and comprehensive the confiscation of Jewish property was. We committed to taking and keeping everything when it arrived in June 2001, as far back as a rare 1660 work which like most of the volumes included the shelf mark label applied by the Tubergin library. There are a couple of journal title pages which bear the ownership inscription says our Hirsch. But for the most part the volumes are unremarkable, and there are no ink stamps or markings or other physical evidence, which indicate that Gestapo agents handle them. So we committed to taking and keeping everything such as a long run of the important journal RQ for or in Heilkunde, but also the regional Auto Club directory which included a Hirsch's membership. We tell the ownership story and notes in the catalog record, and in a unique special collections and archives code, which can be summoned to intellectually gather all of the catalog records together for volumes which may be physically in different places based on their format or subject based call number. In 2002 we announced receiving a hundred ninety one book titles and 37 journal title, but upon cataloging determined we had 733 bound volumes distributed across 221 titles. 169 books or monographs, one dissertation, two conference proceedings and 49 runs of journals. I wonder if there are other Hirsch books out there waiting to be rediscovered. We have fixed a special book like to each volume and described Hirsch's and Tubergin's former ownership in each catalog record. The ability to identify and reconstitute this remaining library speaks to our obligation as librarians to commit the effort to fully describe and distinguish our holdings for discovery, access and use. Because each copy of a book or journal or piece of a firmware has a story, a life beyond its generic digital surrogate. In our cataloging we record what the Canadian painter Matthew Wong, who himself died by suicide just before the pandemic, and is profiled in this week's New Yorker described as quote the residue and traces of human activity. I am deeply saddened that Dr Hirsch's surviving library does not contain any copies of his own work, a textbook and 120 papers. I recently learned through a biography that a successor Leo Martin Reich at the Marianne Hospital wrote in 2009 that Hirsch was an editor of the journal pain, and in 1929 led several workshops on the subject of analgesia or pain relief in the US. The history of pain research and pain management is one of our core collecting areas, who the John C. Levis can history pain collection and its endowment. So now I also feel a commitment to help pain researchers learn Hirsch's role cut short. There's so much more to say about says our Hirsch and his family in context, such as explaining a photo, not this one but one which I have seen but don't have in Princeton, New Jersey, of Mrs Hirsch, alongside Jenny Einstein, and Otto Weinstein the Hirsch's pediatrician in Stuttgart, and autophysicist cousin Albert. For now I point biography to biographies such as Suzanne Royce's one paragraph on Stuttgart medical personnel. And an excellent Wikipedia entry and more. There is something that caught my eye in Cesar Hirsch's formal portrait.  While he peered into the lit space through a tiny hole in the center of the mirror. He didn't polish the mirror before his portrait was made. It is covered with his finger and thumb prints. Which I love, because it makes this formal portrait into one of a very much working doctor who's working library we are fortunate to have and make accessible to anyone to use in our university with the blessing of Dr Hirsch's family and the hard work of Hans Joachim long and many academicians and librarians. Thank you. Thank you Russell. Let's go straight to our questions for the sake of time. So, first question is for Dr Lisa left. Thank you for an excellent presentation please elaborate on your intent in terming this as strange a restitution. Thank you and thank you for the question. Yeah, strange because we think of restitution as going back. I mean, to the first of all to the individual owners or to the original owners, including individuals and in this case, and restitution for individuals to individuals was almost was for the most part not even sought or tried, because it was assumed to be possible. And then strange also because within the context of international lot Jews did not exist. So the decision, at least with the airless books to return things to Jews was quite unusual and to take them to other countries and it was a kind of, you know, to do this at a time before Israel was this decision was taken before Israel was even a state right this was to Jewish cultural reconstruction as somehow representing the Jews and then a distribution that that organization made to libraries that were understood to be places where Jews could use them. I mean by strange I don't mean to make an ethical judgment, though I think as one of the other questions seems to suggest, there's complicated ethics there it's not all good or all bad and the post history of it, as you kind of see here leads to more institutions where nothing's ever settled right and they're later when European institutions, European Jewish institutions are at in fact show themselves. Again, ready to be home to these books on you know American institutions or Israeli institutions find themselves in a quandary, what should be done now, and I think that's what's so amazing about this panel is to see that long journey and the continued grappling by librarians to find a way to do the right thing. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I mean there are not only legal issues but also ethical issues issues here so yeah that's complicated. The next question. The presentation was very informative, but it must be stated that sometimes taking matters into one's own hands can be dangerous. This is what has happened in many Caribbean and Latin American countries. Here in Cuba when wealthy people fleeing revolution, saved important documents in archives post positing that the new governments cannot take care of them properly. So it's more of a comment I guess then a direct question. Unless you want to comment. I was going to say absolutely and I think we see some of that in this in this story that we saw in four parts today or angles on in four parts today that when you have a process like this, there's going to be both legal and extralegal and in the story with what happened with Jewish books. There's so much extralegal going on around the edges and then you know the ethical questions on top of them and one shouldn't just celebrate, you know, the, the extralegal at the same time, one must be aware of the limits of the law and that this extralegal circulation of books and their acquisition by libraries, you know, hopefully it sounds like a lot of what's happening in the library and the field these days is trying to figure out policies that can better deal with this that don't just say, as long as things wound up in a place that takes good care of them it's all for the best that we're trying to move beyond that mentality, which pervaded the field for so long, but maybe other professional librarians want to speak to this. One would like to comment on this or should we move on to the next question. We had still a few. Let me read another one for the sake of provenance research and determining to whom a given book should be returned. A given stamp book plate or ownership signature always prove current ownership books can be sold the accession or given away without documentation. If I could jump in here yeah. Sometimes you will see multiple provenance marks in a book and determining the order of them is is not easy at all. I mean the first step, a big step that we need to do as librarians is to in our catalog records put what the ink stamps and the inscriptions and the book plates and and all those marks are into the record, so that they are discoverable by people who are more familiar with the names and the institutions than we are as librarian, I think. Okay, thank you. Another one that scholarship is underway regarding a collecting practices by US libraries post war, particularly those that build collections with inexpensively and perhaps unethically and Europe after the holocaust. What additional records are scholars using to reconstruct the pathways of the post war book trade, looking forward to reviewing the research guide. Since a couple of things that were mentioned there were biomedical. So having things like the, the, the archives of a collector, the archives of booksellers UCLA has several archives of booksellers. And with our major medical collection john Benjamin we have his correspondence and invoices and such with all the booksellers that he worked with. So, for example, if we can identify a particular bookseller. After World War two, that would be of great interest because of where they might have gotten the books we can we can hone in on things like that. Okay, thank you. Let me get to this question. So far, the talks have primarily addressed institutional collections and their personal and restitution attempts in my experience, individual rare book collectors collect in their areas of expertise. So physicians often collect rare books and medicine rarely do these books have any identifying marks with the thinking that in that it harms the value of the book. If a book such works as Versailles Harvey folk cell cells, etc, would probably have been confiscated and then just disappear into the antiquarian book trade, have any title such as these been recovered or are there attempts to identify individual Jewish rare book collectors in order. What happened to such now extremely rare and valuable books. I can say something about that. And just that at often back, you know the the one of the interesting first things that they did there was to for large collections that did have book plates in them. So whether they were from individuals or from institutions, they did take photographs of all of those book plates and then make a book of them and circulate them to see to be able to identify who's they were so there was some attempt with large collections that they could tell were collections, even those that belong to individuals like the Rothschilds had a famous book collection that was found there. And they were turned them to individuals but otherwise as you're saying, the, the allies wanted to move fast, and they did not think they were in a position to be able to deal with individual books and instead treated them as collective property, and we're still dealing with the fallout of that many decades later. Okay, thank you. Here's one specific question. How did Hirsch acquire the Schneider book which it looks like it came from a library. Unfortunately, we don't have any of Hirsch's own archives. Of course we would know that he acquired this before 1933 or earlier. I'm not sure that I can make out the the previous ownership marks in that volume but but when we can we we know that that said something is there for further investigation. Okay, thank you. Here's one question about the logistics of the whole process. How did you see a Lego about contacting the Czech Consulate. And is there a standard for reaching out to other governments when artifacts books materials are discovered in collections. Thank you. That's a great question. It's, it's all about who you know. So we have a colleague of mine who is herself from, from Czech, from the Czech Republic, and she knew somebody in the council and it was through her connection that we were able to bring in the council general and our efforts with the, the Israeli representatives were also somebody knew somebody who knew somebody in the country. And so, yeah, it came down to who you know but yeah there are efforts to, I think the more that we get a story out there, the councils themselves will say, Hey, this could be affecting my communities, or people in my, in my, in my language, so they hopefully there will be and have their ears open their their ears and their eyes open to other instances and which would be ideal. Thank you. Now another question is about online depositors repositories so has UCLA done further systematic research and how to trust. And are you aware of other libraries or organizations who are systematically looking for these items and how to trust. We have a plan that is, I hope this summer will begin to actuate if we haven't developed all of the fine points but because there are probably hundred well we have several thousand books in Hathi trust, and not all of them are of but they may be of questionable some may be of questionable provenance. So we, we haven't yet set out the exact plan I don't want to talk about the details because they are not quite certain at this time but that is one of our goals because we feel so strongly and just going through some of our items in our special collections. They, I see ownership stamps from various institutions European institutions that I am going to have to research. And as Michael pointed out there are various databases that European libraries have developed. And so I think we're holding with them I think it was the Brisbane collection that they have many of the, the ownership stamps and markings. And so I think we're going to have to start moving on all of us together. I don't know of any other institution in North America who is doing a review of their holdings, but I do know that this is going on in Europe. And what it brings up is that as there are campaigns to eliminate some duplicates in collections because of so much digitization going on, but the digitization is of one copy somewhere. So it is a duplicate truly a duplicate. When you start looking at the provenance information or particular physical characteristics hand coloring versus not colored and so forth. It's, it's, it's a lot more effort than just weeding. I follow up a question for Diane Mizrahi. So for an institution that may not have those connections what suggestions, would you make for contacting counselors. Well, it obviously depends on the Council, and like the Czech Council was very open and you can go to their Los Angeles branch and you can go to their website and get get information and and contact information. And other councils they a bit more oblique and not as easily penitable, but I think you just have to start with the even going down there and if you're in the, in the general area. We're fortunate in Los Angeles that most, most of the countries have representatives in right practically in our neighborhood. And so, you know, even going down and saying I'm a librarian from here and this is what we're doing is we have books that we think belong to communities in your, in your country and we would like to have a dialogue with you. But, you know, starting with the phone calls and and I even did WhatsApp with the Israeli Council and email and just trying to penetrate through and then finding out maybe even among your faculty or your research centers. Somebody may have had an event where they were they invited a representative from a council or an embassy or a community and they were able to make that connection that way so even among your own, not just necessarily librarians but other researchers in your, your community or other researchers that you know may have some kind of connection and be able to, to say oh I know this person and they can get you through some. Thank you. So maybe we'll try to squeeze one more question in here. It's a short question might be complicated. I'm wondering about the relationship between these restitution efforts and Zionist state building. I'm happy to say something about that. I mean I think you know I mentioned the Gershwin Sholam kind of mission to Europe that also he went through Prague I should have said that as well before he went to Offenbach and how many things. As a representative Hebrew University. He identified and got to Jerusalem to become part of, you know, the ideology there is very Jewish nationalist it's about building a Jewish state and if there's going to be a Jewish state. There should be a national and university library that holds the collections of things that are relevant, you know this is part of nationalism. But I think one of the things that's so interesting about what happened in the aftermath of World War two with the book restitution is that it's not only Zionist. It's a Zionist element. That's part of the story. And then there's this North America, you know the biggest beneficiaries of Jewish cultural reconstruction, we're in, we're institutions in North America. And most among those the seminaries Jewish theological seminary in New York and Hebrew Union College got the biggest collections. So it's a multifaceted Jewish project to keep cultural life connected you know to produce to be able to stay connected to these books that were part of the past. I'd like to add that that there were scholars in North America Lisa maybe you can say that the names who did not believe that we should be concentrating too many books in one place because of the, the ever hanging threat over the Jewish people of annihilation. We have all of this one concentration where all Jewish scholarship all Jewish work is held, and something God forbid happens, then all of that work goes with it. So there were many differences of opinion and a lot of individual actors and agents as well. Thank you so much. At this point we end over time so we need to close I would like to thank you all for those remarkable presentations conveying all these extraordinary stories thank you very much. Thank you all for coming and you know just continue to check our guide and we'll have genius video on there and people's links to people's presentations or the videos of this panel and any other extra information and please please please do the survey I know we had a lot of technical thoughts in the beginning but there was a lot of good information and we hope to see you in the other programs. Thank you.