The book smugglers : partisans, poets, and the race to save Jewish treasures from the Nazis.
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Published
Lebanon, NH : ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England, [2017].
Format
Book
ISBN
9781512600490, 1512600490
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LocationCall NumberStatus
Fletcher Free Library - 3rd Floor - Adult Non-Fiction940.531 FIS 2017On Shelf
Rockingham Free Public Library - Adult Non-Fiction940.5318 FISHMAN DAVIDOn Shelf

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Published
Lebanon, NH : ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England, [2017].
Physical Desc
xv, 322 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates ; 25 cm.
Language
English
ISBN
9781512600490, 1512600490

Notes

Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description
The Book Smugglers is the nearly unbelievable story of ghetto residents who rescued thousands of rare books and manuscripts—first from the Nazis and then from the Soviets—by hiding them on their bodies, burying them in bunkers, and smuggling them across borders. It is a tale of heroism and resistance, of friendship and romance, and of unwavering devotion—including the readiness to risk one’s life—to literature and art. And it is entirely true. Based on Jewish, German, and Soviet documents, including diaries, letters, memoirs, and the author’s interviews with several of the story’s participants, The Book Smugglers chronicles the daring activities of a group of poets turned partisans and scholars turned smugglers in Vilna, “The Jerusalem of Lithuania.” The rescuers were pitted against Johannes Pohl, a Nazi “expert” on the Jews, who had been dispatched to Vilna by the Nazi looting agency, Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg, to organize the seizure of the city’s great collections of Jewish books. Pohl and his Einsatzstab staff planned to ship the most valuable materials to Germany and incinerate the rest. The Germans used forty ghetto inmates as slave-laborers to sort, select, pack, and transport the materials, either to Germany or to nearby paper mills. This group, nicknamed “the Paper Brigade,” and informally led by poet Shmerke Kaczerginski, a garrulous, street-smart adventurer and master of deception, smuggled thousands of books and manuscripts past German guards. If caught, the men would have faced death by firing squad at Ponar, the mass-murder site outside of Vilna. To store the rescued manuscripts, poet Abraham Sutzkever helped build an underground book-bunker sixty feet beneath the Vilna ghetto. Kaczerginski smuggled weapons as well, using the group’s worksite, the former building of the Yiddish Scientific Institute, to purchase arms for the ghetto’s secret partisan organization. All the while, both men wrote poetry that was recited and sung by the fast-dwindling population of ghetto inhabitants. With the Soviet “liberation” of Vilna (now known as Vilnius), the Paper Brigade thought themselves and their precious cultural treasures saved—only to learn that their new masters were no more welcoming toward Jewish culture than the old, and the books must now be smuggled out of the USSR. Thoroughly researched by the foremost scholar of the Vilna Ghetto—a writer of exceptional daring, style, and reach—The Book Smugglers is an epic story of human heroism, a little-known tale from the blackest days of the war.

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Fishman, D. E. (2017). The book smugglers: partisans, poets, and the race to save Jewish treasures from the Nazis . ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Fishman, David E., 1957-. 2017. The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures From the Nazis. ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Fishman, David E., 1957-. The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures From the Nazis ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England, 2017.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Fishman, David E. The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures From the Nazis ForeEdge, an imprint of University Press of New England, 2017.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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