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Online Exhibit Tracks Books Saved by the Real-Life Monuments Men

The role of the the Allied armies’ Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section in saving thousands of European art masterpieces from Nazi plunder is getting a big Hollywood hurrah, thanks to the film “The Monuments Men.”

But the monuments men, a new interactive online exhibit points out, were also notable as book men.

The exhibit, created by the Center for Jewish History in New York and available on Flickr, is part of a continuing effort to trace the origins of the millions of volumes that the Nazis seized from libraries large and small as they marched through Europe. Some of those books remain in German libraries. But as many as three million ended up in the Allies’ Offenbach archival depot outside Frankfurt, Germany, where thousands of book stamps, bookplates and other marks providing clues to their provenance were cataloged in scrapbooks compiled by Col. Seymour Pomrenze, the American officer in charge....

Read entire article at New York Times