Saxon libraries return Nazi-looted property

In the course of a joint restitution of Nazi-looted property from a total of 14 German libraries and archives, the heirs have also received 36 volumes from the collection of the Jewish writer Raoul Fernand Jellinek-Mercedes (1888-1939) from Saxony. According to the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library (SLUB), they and the rest of the 41 works in the collection were subsequently purchased for the respective collections. Provenance researchers identified three books in the SLUB, one in the Chemnitz City Library, 15 in the German National Library in Leipzig and 17 in the Leipzig City Library.

The spectrum of restituted items ranges from biographies to books on book illustration, music and literature to military history treatises. Thanks to the documentation of the finds, the library of the writer Jellinek-Mercedes could be reconstructed "at least in part". The three Dresden books came into the collection between 1967 and 1976 via the second-hand book trade and as part of an estate.

Jellinek-Mercedes persecuted by the Nazis

The Austrian Jellinek-Mercedes was persecuted because of his Jewish origins and took his own life under the pressure of repression in February 1939. He was a supporting member of the Vienna Musikverein and owned a large collection of music, paintings and books. After his death, his widow had to sell large parts of it, including his valuable private library, which was dispersed via the antiquarian book trade.

Since 2011, the SLUB has been systematically checking its holdings for illegally acquired books from the National Socialist era as part of third-party funded projects and publishing any such finds. Where possible, the rightful heirs are identified and the works restituted. So far, this has been the case more than 30 times, and over 300 proven cases of Nazi-looted property have yet to be investigated.