This is an interesting and moving book about a group of prisoners in Vilnius, Poland whose monumental efforts saved Jewish literature for future generations. This is a scholarly work that cannot be read quickly. There is too much to absorb. There is much written on these pages that I already am aware of, but there is also still so much recorded there that shocked me. I find that no matter how much I read on this subject, man’s inhumanity to man, man’s justification for it, and man’s implementation of the mass murder of millions of people still retains the power to horrify me. Yet on the flip side, there are these stories of courageous men and women that will live on in perpetuity and that continue to amaze me and challenge my own ideas of whether or not I, too, could have risen to the occasion as they did.
I had not known of the organization Hitler created to study Judaica, using the Jews’ own literature and religious books to justify their criminal status in order to legitimize Germany’s practice of rampant anti-Semitism and mass murder. The persecution of Jews, once begun, permeated German society in every country Germany invaded. Even, although difficult to believe, the church had members who were complicit in the brutality inflicted on those that Hitler deemed unfit. There was little opportunity for escape for the Jew who was caught in the web. Still, many unsung heroes risked life and limb to preserve their history and protect their written culture from literally being burned at the stake.
Books not deemed useful to the despicable effort of Hitler’s minions were burned in bonfires. Books deemed helpful in their effort to justify their heinous behavior were preserved. Jews were recruited and imprisoned for that particular intellectual pursuit. They were to decide which book lived and which book died. This book is the story of the salvation of the Jewish books that would eventually preserve Jewish history, heritage and culture, and defeat Hitler’s effort to destroy an entire people. The people featured in this book were their saviors.