In this guest commentary, the creators of the Education Agenda NS-Injustice project “Library of Lost Books” reflect on the challenges and opportunities of citizen science – and on the (im)possibilities of Holocaust education after October 7, 2023.
The Library of Lost Books is a project that engages with a German-Jewish institution that was looted and destroyed by the Nazis, namely the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums [Higher Institute for Jewish Studies] (1872–1942) in Berlin. The project operates at the intersection of research and education: it not only tells the story of the Hochschule and its community through an online exhibition but also actively calls on the public to take action – here and now – in response to a Nazi crime. One of the project’s slogans is “Go write history!” In this way, the Library of Lost Books is an appeal for help from “citizen scientists.” People around the world are invited to take part in a provenance-research project to trace the whereabouts of 60,000 stolen volumes from the Hochschule’s library – books that were looted by the Nazis in 1942 and then scattered across the globe after 1945.
Provenance Researchers In Schools: A Good Idea?
The initiative for the project came from the Leo Baeck Institute in Jerusalem, where provenance researcher Bettina Farack was alerted by a colleague to library stamps originating from the Hochschule. With the support of the EVZ Foundation, the question of what became of the Hochschule’s library gave rise to an educational project developed through international cooperation between the Leo Baeck Institutes in Jerusalem and London and the Association of Friends and Supporters of the Leo Baeck Institute. As project creators, we not only tackled current issues concerning provenance research but also faced the challenges of a future in which remembrance and communication increasingly take place in digital spaces.
Our core question was this: how youthful can an internationally renowned research institute that will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2025 make its communication in order to fulfill its mission of ensuring that German-Jewish history is preserved and continues to be the subject of research and education into the 21st century? In other words, how is it possible to make academic work on German-Jewish history and culture appealing to the next generation?
From the perspective of the project leadership team the history of the Hochschule and its library offered a unique opportunity to use this complex microcosm to raise awareness of the looting of cultural assets while also calling for concrete action against a Nazi crime. Our primary target audience was young people: we wanted to offer them a glimpse into a vibrant and multi-layered German-Jewish community. It was also important to us to adopt a new approach to Holocaust education and make the crimes of that era tangible by explicitly focusing on the search for stolen books.
In order to encourage participation in the search for the Hochschule’s missing volumes, and having conducted detailed research ourselves, we decided to develop a modern, vibrant online exhibition about the Hochschule and its students and staff and to promote the project on TikTok. The aim of the latter would be to foster exchanges within a global community of “book detectives” while at the same time raising awareness among younger generations regarding this important chapter in German-Jewish history.
Together with the team at the design agency navos create, we told the story of the Hochschule in a way that connects with current issues – for example, through an empathetic portrait of the world’s first female rabbi, Regina Jonas, who overcame deeply entrenched prejudice. We emphasized the individualist and critical approach to research and teaching at the Hochschule and the radical destruction of a place defined by discourse and tolerance in order to shed light on a crime whose effects are still felt to this day. The project always remained focused on the people at the Hochschule and the lived realities that shaped their experience.
With the help of numerous research and education experts as well as college and primary school students, we created a now award-winning online exhibition that has attracted more than 44,000 visitors since its launch in November 2023.
The project was promoted through local pop-up exhibitions in cities around the world, which were held in places where books from the Hochschule had been found and generated media attention and public interest through preview events and expert talks. The hybrid format of the Library of Lost Books also included “search days”: interactive events where primary school and university students searched for provenance markings in archives and libraries together with specialists. Held at venues such as the Staatsbibliothek [National Library] in Berlin, the Leo Baeck Institute Jerusalem, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, these search days turned out to be very popular. In fact, some of our partner institutions have now made search days a permanent feature of their youth programming.
Everything Changes: October 7, 2023
Alongside the international support for our project, we were unfortunately also faced with unexpected challenges. The Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023 triggered such a massive wave of hatred towards Jewish people on social media that we were forced to cancel a planned campaign on TikTok. We found ourselves having to address Holocaust-related topics in a world where war was escalating both in real life and on social media. Once again, the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies was caught in the middle of a conflict.
We couldn’t avoid the question: how do we respond to this challenge? On the one hand, all of us, and especially our colleagues in Israel, were suddenly confronted with the fragility of our world, which made it very difficult to go on with our work. But the solidarity and determination of our international team made all the difference: we were all certain that this project was now particularly important! Our partners in the Czech Republic, Germany, the US, the UK, and Israel truly went the extra mile to support the Library of Lost Books despite the global political crisis.
In light of the dramatic rise in Antisemitic violence targeting Jewish people online, we decided against giving the Library of Lost Books a face on TikTok. Exposing young people to a wave of verbal abuse in the digital space was not an option for us. All of a sudden, the idea of promoting the Library of Lost Books on BookTok through “book bucket challenges” and making our volunteers publicly visible felt tone deaf. Of course we also discussed whether we should remain active on TikTok precisely because of the rise in Antisemitism. But our awareness of and concern for the potential psychological burden on our volunteers ultimately carried more weight in the decision-making process. Nevertheless, we were determined to find a digital space where we could continue to share our historical work and the online exhibition. Together with social media experts from Dawn Media, we adapted our project strategy, choosing instead to focus more on thematic elements of the Hochschule’s history rather than launching book bucket challenges or building a TikTok community of “book detectives.” Their Instagram channel @haveyouseenthisbook focused on presenting our topics in a visually engaging way.
The launch events at the exhibition locations were also affected by the wave of violence following October 7, 2023, although we were fortunate that only one event on a US university campus had to be canceled for security reasons. Still, we never imagined we would need to hold security briefings with the police before talking about a Nazi crime in a public space. It was a striking change in our working environment, and one that did not leave us untouched.
Mission (Im)Possible?
Was our mission rendered impossible by the war between Hamas and Israel? We can say with confidence: no, it wasn’t. Although we had to take some detours, it was a deeply moving experience for all involved when the first Hochschule book discoveries from our search days were added to the interactive map. The effort and strain of the preceding few years paid off at the very moment when we stood in the National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum and watched over 50 schoolchildren eagerly sift through admittedly rather dull auction catalogs in search of clues about Nazi plunder and then even asking if we had any more work for them.
The reach of the Library of Lost Books also shows that it was definitely worth pushing ahead with the project.
Despite adverse circumstances, we succeeded in making the origins and values of the Leo Baeck Institute visible through our Library of Lost Books and in using innovative methods to communicate the long-term impact of Nazi violence on the lives, history, and culture of German Jewry to a new generation.
But more than anything, we learned that you just have to keep going. Because every person we reached made the effort worthwhile.
By Kinga Bloch (LBI London, 2019–2024), Irene Aue-Ben David and Bettina Farack (LBI Jerusalem).
