The Book Thieves: The Nazi Looting of Europe's Libraries and the Race to Return a Literary Inheritance by Anders Rydell, Henning Koch

I picked up this book because I am a self proclaimed bibliophile and wanted to learn about the great libraries that had been plundered during World War II by the Nazis and their allies. What I got instead was a look at the way that bit by bit Germany tried too and almost succeeded in, erasing the very existence of millions of their enemies from the history records completely. What this book does is not only take you along as we try to discover what happened to large, well established libraries but also personal libraries and those of every day people who might just have had a few books they treasured laying around the house. This is a look at the grip that books have had on every civilization on Earth since the beginning, how even when all was being destroyed that didn't fit into the skewed view of the world the Nazis held as their ideology, they still understood how important the written word could be and were determined to build their new world not only on the bones of their victims but on schools and libraries built from the very books that had so lovingly been crafted by those they so loathed.

This book will bring home how whole villages were simply erased off the face of the earth. How books were so much more than just written pages to people who had lost everything and placed so much more on the line to try and save what they could. The stories in here don't just revolve around the books but around the PEOPLE who were lost. This is a heart breaking look at how West and East Europe were treated as different and yet were just as violated by the Nazis and after when the war was won were once again delivered crippling blows by the loss of life and millions of books which simply disappeared forever taking with them wisdom and knowledge that can never be replaced.

Today, well established libraries around the world hold in their collections books that once held hope and promise for readers just like you and me. They don't look any different from the others on the shelf except maybe for a label on the outside that for those who know, carries the truth in plain sight that once upon a time this book belonged to an individual who was destroyed to make room for the vainglory of a nationalistic point of view. They are the sole reminders, tucked away without fanfare of lives lost and we are the poorer for it. For the few determined individuals you will meet in this book who strive to make these stories speak out and be heard this is a never ending struggle, for you as the reader it is a reminder of why we must always be vigilant. The next time you walk into a second hand shop or find a book with a ex libris or written inscription, take a moment to wonder about the former owner because after reading this book you will never be able not too.