Ten ERR Lists of Libraries Seized in France
Compiled by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted
The summary list below provides titles, dates and sources for the ten ERR lists of libraries seized in France presented in facsimile in this project. Details about the context of ERR library seizures in France during the occupation, the known facts about their creation of the individual lists, their archival source are explained in Dr. Grimsted’s article, likewise presented on this website:
The English version of the article presented here has been slightly updated from the earlier version that was used for the French translation now shown on the website of the French Committee on Jewish Archives (Commission française d’archives juives – CFAJ) in Paris:
.Ten Facsimile ERR Lists
The titles of the lists with their original titles in blue below are hyperlinked to the facsimile texts. See Dr. Grimsted’s article for a further discussion of each list.
We are very grateful to the several archives referenced as holders of the original documents that kindly furnished digital copies with permission for use on this website. These include:
- The Frankfurt City Historical Institute, Frankfurt am Main
- The National Archives of the United States in College Park, MD (NACP)
- The German Federal Archives (Bundesarchiv), Berlin-Lichterfelde
- The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew (TNA)
- The Central State Archive of the Highest Agencies of Power and Administration of Ukraine (Tsentral'nyi derzhavnyi arkhiv vyshchykh orhaniv vlady ta upravlinnia Ukraïny, TsDAVO), Kyiv, Ukraine1
Internet display of these documents in the context of this project should now permit the families or heirs of the victims, researchers, historians, librarians, or other interested individuals to ascertain more details about library seizures in France by one of the key agencies of the National Socialist regime involved in cultural plunder. We particularly hope that identifying the names of victims of library seizure with this notorious German agent of seizure will help librarians today in many countries where the looted books may be found to identify the owners involved. As noted in the accompanying article, for example, many books belonging to over one hundred victims on these lists have been identified in the Rare Book Department of the National Library in Minsk, the capital of the Republic of Belarus, and librarians there have been trying to identify more.
Ten ERR Lists of Libraries seized in France
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(#1). Bericht: Beschlegnahme Judaica-Bibliotheken in Frankreich, Belgien und in den Niederlanden (Frankfurt on Main, 26 August 1940)
[Report: Seizure of Judaica Libraries in France, Belgium, and in the Netherlands] (Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt am Main, Magistratsakten 8.614 Nr. 426-428).2
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(#2). Betrifft: Beschlegnahme von Bibliotheken und Archiven (Paris, 16 September 1940)
[Report: Seizure of Libraries and Archives]
(NACP, RG 260, Ardelia Hall Collection [MCCP];
NARA Microfilm Publication M1946).3 -
(#3) and (#4) with a covering Memorandum by Dr Gerd Wunder, ERR HAG Frankreich to the Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich (2 May 1941). The March list (#3) and April addenda (#4), as appendices – Anlage II.4
(NACP NARA Microfilm Publication, T-501, roll 362 [earlier foliation 295k–306k at bottom right; lacking or not legible on some pages])
- (#3). "Gesamtaufstellung der bisher vom Arbeitsgebiet Paris verpackten Büchereien" (Paris, 23 March 1941)
[Complete list of libraries already packed by the Paris Working Group] - (#4). "Nachtrag zu den in Paris verpackten Büchereien" (Paris, 24 April 1941)
[Addendum to the Paris libraries packed]
- (#3). "Gesamtaufstellung der bisher vom Arbeitsgebiet Paris verpackten Büchereien" (Paris, 23 March 1941)
- (#6). "I. Positive Einsatzstellen Paris"
[Positive operational sites in Paris]
(TsDAVO, fond 3676, series [opys]1, file 172, folios 277–282). - (#7). "II. Sonderakte Paris"
[Special actions in Paris]
(TsDAVO, fond 3676, file 172, folio 273) - (#8). "III. Sonderstab ‘Kirchen’ Paris"
[Special unit ‘churches’ in Paris]
(TsDAVO, fond 3676, file 172, folio 283).
(TsDAVO, 3676/1/172, folios 274–276; cc. folios 294–296).
(BArch-Berlin-Lichterfelde, NS 30/56 – text on the BArch website).
Charts Combining the Names of Victims
As further aid to research regarding N-S library plunder in France, compendia charts with the names and addresses of 184 individual and 59 institutional ERR library-seizure victims, together with data about the seized books and in some cases archives and other items appearing on all the ten lists, are now available on this website. The names are grouped in two separate charts, the first presenting individuals (or families) and a second for institutions or organizations. The two charts are combined in a single PDF file with Introductory explanation.
2The facsimile of the original is presented here thanks to the Frankfurt Institute for Municipal History. A facsimile published in the well-illustrated OAD memorial volume by Gabriele Hauschke-Wicklaus, Angelika Amborn-Morgenstern, and Erika Jacobs, Fast vergessen: Das amerikanische Bücherdepot in Offenbach am Main von 1945 bis 1949 (Offenbach am Main: Offenbacher Editionen, 2011), pp. 29–31
3The facsimile presented here is courtesy of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). A facsimile was published by Jean-Claude Kuperminc, "The Return of Looted French Archives: The Case of the Library and Archives of the Alliance Israélite Universelle," in Returned from Russia: Nazi Archival Plunder in Western Europe and Recent Restitution Issues, edited by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted, F.J. Hoogewoud, and Eric Ketelaar (Institute of Art and Law, UK, 2007; paper edn, 2013), p. 138.
4The facsimile presented here is courtesy of NARA. Copies of the two lists are also held in Archives Nationales-Site Pierrefitte, F/17/17996. French excerpts of the two lists are published by Poulain, in Livres pillés, lectures surveillées, Appendix II, pp. 421–23. Efforts are underway to locate a better quality copy of these two lists.
5The facsimile presented here is courtesy of The National Archives of the United Kingdom, Kew.
6Facsimile copies of lists #6–#9 are all courtesy TsDAVO, Kyiv, with thanks for arrangements to Kyrylo Vyslobokov.
7The facsimile presented here is courtesy of the Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde.
This page last updated 2017-03-17
ERR sorting books in the Baltic states. – US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yad Vashem Photo Archives.
(The Offenbach Archival Depot album from which this image was taken mistakenly identified "Reval" [Estonian Tallinn] with Latvia.)
