page_title: Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce
section_title: Poland
hierarchical_section_title: Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce / ERR Operations / Poland
context_page_description: The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce was a Nazi Party organization dedicated to appropriating cultural property during the Second World War. It was led by the chief ideologue of the Nazi Party, Alfred Rosenberg, from within the NSDAP Office of Foreign Affairs. Between 1940 and 1945, the ERR operated in France, the Benelux countries, Poland, the Baltic States, Greece, Italy and on the territory of the Soviet Union in the Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Much of the looted material was recovered by the Allies after the war, and returned to rightful owners, but there remains a substantial part that has been lost or remains with the Allied powers.
context_section_description: " ... From the very beginning of the establishment of the Staatsbibliothek Krakau, special importance was given to materials related to the natural sciences, mathematics, geography and medicine. In the fiscal year 1940–1941, the amount of money spent on book purchases was surprisingly high." The Germans recognized the value of the scientific collection, and from 1941 through 1944, 35,599 books were borrowed by 2,621 patrons, mostly German civil servants and military personnel. Polish civilians were not allowed access to the library during the occupation. Gustav Abb, the German overseer of libraries, decided to send much of the reference collection to Germany in 1944. "Abb decided to send the major part of the reference collection, as well as most of the books bought by the Staatsbibliothek to Germany (altogether about 25,000 volumes). [Polish] Librarians, charged with the task of filling boxes with books, tried to sabotage Abb’s orders. They hid a large number of books and stuffed boxes with old newspapers. Despite those heroic efforts to save the collection, the Germans were still able to send a great number of books to Adelsdorf (Adelin) in Silesia. Fortunately, after the war the library was able to recover most of the books that Abb had evacuated form the library." Later in the war, the main reading room was used as sleeping quarters for German soldiers, and other parts of the library were used as a hospital for Germans.
  From the Frankfurter Zeitung, Wochen-Ausgabe, 28 March 1941: "For us it is a matter of special pride to destroy the Talmudic Academy which has been known as the greatest in Poland ... We threw out of the building the great Talmudic Library and carted it to market. There we set fire to the books. The fire lasted for twenty hours. The Jews of Lublin were assembled around and cried bitterly. The cries almost silenced us. Then we summoned a military band, and the joyful shouts of the soldiers silenced the sounds of Jewish cries."
caption: Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man was looted by the Germans from the Czartoryski Museum in 1939.
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