Books in the Terezín Ghetto and their Post-War Fate
Books in the Terezín Ghetto and their Post-War Fate

Summary/Abstract: Books often move around and circulate. Their purpose is to convey and spread their author’s ideas. During and after the Second World War, books from private and public Jewish libraries were moved about to a greater extent than usual. Today, the holdings of the Library of the Jewish Museum in Prague also contain books with various stamps, primarily of Jewish institutions from various European countries, as well as books stamped with the word Ghettobücherei or Zentralbücherei Theresienstadt. The paths taken by these books into the library holdings are various. The first part of this paper focuses on the Central Library of the Terezín Ghetto, exploring its foundation, functioning, staff and work methods. Even in specialist texts, however, there is sometimes a merging of the two various collections of books that were gathered in Terezín at the same time – the Central Library and a large collection of books that was stolen by Nazis from various libraries and institutions and were sent to Terezín during the war. In some studies, the Hebrew portion of the Central Library, called “hebräisches Raum”, is even considered to be part of the Library of the wartime Central Jewish Museum in Prague, which is an erroneous and unsubstantiated opinion. The nature of these two book collections and the way they were put together is completely different, which is why the next part of this paper focuses on the fate of the books that were sent from Germany to various localities in what was then the Protectorate, including Terezín, during the war. I shall also briefly describe the way this collection of Hebrew printed books was put together, how it was catalogued in Terezín and where it was moved to after the war.

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