A Mortuary of Books

“In meticulous detail, drawing on archival sources, memoirs, correspondence, and histories, Gallas … makes an impressive book debut with a comprehensive history of efforts to recover, identify, and restore artifacts of Jewish culture and scholarship… . A fresh, significant contribution to Jewish history.” (STARRED Kirkus Review) “In this remarkable tale of a little-studied aspect of the Holocaust, Gallas reckons with what the attempted Nazi erasure of Jewish intellectual and cultural heritage means for a people whose identity is tied to a tradition of books and learning… A serious work of Jewish studies scholarship that is important and accessible for anyone interested in the history of the book or postwar Europe.” - Library Journal Review “A Mortuary of Books is an incredible historical work that will benefit scholars in upcoming generations, partly because this is one aspect of post-Holocaust life that has not received much attention. The sheer amount of detail about the numerous Jewish organizations and officials featured is amazing.” - The Reporter “This well-researched and original monograph not only reconstructs a complex history in a multilayered and nuanced fashion, but also demonstrates the key importance of efforts in the immediate aftermath of the Nazi genocide to create new bases for Jewish culture and politics.” (Holocaust and Genocide Studies)

Elisabeth Gallas is chief research associate at the Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture—Simon Dubnow in Leipzig, Germany.