Sroka, Marek.

Forsaken and Abandoned: The Nationalization and Salvage of

Deserted, Displaced, and Private Library Collections in Poland, 1945-1948. Library &
Information History 28.4 (2012): 272-88.

In Marek Srokas Forsaken and Abandoned: The Nationalization and Salvage of Deserted,
Displaced, and Private Library Collections in Poland, 1945-1948, he examines the rescue of
abandoned and ransacked libraries in Poland, both private and public, as well as the
organizational structure of the rescue mission. Sroka is an Assistant Professor of Library
Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He received his bachelors
degree at the University of Krakow and his Masters at the University of Illinois. Sroka consulted
the Manuscript Division at the Jagiellonian University Library in Poland to find the original
documents necessary to write the article.
After the end of World War II, Eastern Polish borders were redrawn, leaving many Polish
libraries in the territory of the Soviet Union. In the north and west, Nazi troops as well as the
Soviets ransacked museums and libraries that had been under German control, taking books and
cultural artifacts. The Soviets considered these items to be part of the spoils of war, and special
trophy brigades, (Marek, p. 273) composed of art historians and museum curators, were sent to
collect artifacts and bring them back to the Soviet Union. The removal of these materials from
Polish pre-war cities such as Bydgoszcz and Gdynia violated agreements between Polish and
Soviet governments. German officials had also been using castles in Pomerania and Silesia to
store looted materials as well as legitimate German artifacts. In 1945, Polish authorities began to
try bringing things under control and regain Polish cultural artifacts. Ksawery Piwock, Director
General of museums in Poland, issued an order to the Polish army in former German territories

to go to museums, libraries, and antique shops in forty cities and remove cultural items as well as
card catalogs.
By May of 1945, plans were made, with the support of the Allies, to move Germans who had
settled in what was now Polish territory back to Germany and create a culturally homogenous
Communist Polish state. According to Sroka, pre-war Breslau was a center of German heritage
that included two major libraries, the University Library and the Municipal Library. When the
Germans were sent back to Germany, the books and other items in the libraries were officially
decreed abandoned property and turned over to the Polish government. The appropriated artifacts
were sent to the National Museum for sorting, then dispersed to libraries and other museums
throughout Poland. From 1945-1948, the Polish Ministry of Education put an official recovery
plan in place to save library collections within the new Polish borders. The Office of Education
of the Safekeeping of Forsaken and Abandoned Library Collections was formed, and six regions
in the new Polish territory were impacted by the recovery efforts, namely Krakow, which became
the center of the recovery effort. Sroka cites the 1947 report of Stanisaw Sierotwiski, the
Offices official representative, as giving a detailed version of the recovery that includes the
Offices efforts to recover not only Polish books and cultural artifacts, but also German items as
well. By the end of 1946, Sierotwiski had saved 5.5 million books from destruction and looting.
Although approximately 900 tons of books were saved, this effort received criticism from some
who felt that the regions were being stripped of their cultural heritage. Fifty-five years later, a
campaign emerged from these affected areas called Give Us Back What Belongs to Us that
resulted in the Polish government returning valuable cultural items back to their cities.

Abandoned and forsaken books were not the only documents that were recovered. Under
the new Communist government, books and rare items that had previously been owned by Polish
aristocrats and landed gentry were also nationalized and taken. This class warfare involved
librarians, who fought to save bourgeois cultural property. (Sroka, p. 278) Aleksandr
Birkenmajer headed up recovery efforts in private Polish property between 1945-1947, and often
had to barter with the Soviet army, exchanging cigarettes and alcohol for books.
Once the books were brought back to Krakow and other recovery cities, sorting centers were
formed in warehouses and university library buildings. Librarians who worked at these centers
were tasked with preserving special collections as well as finding materials in the Polish
countryside. In 1947, Sierotwiski and his colleagues discovered that a large amount of German
material was being pulped in recycling centers. Maria Quirini, the government representative in
the Western Pomeranian district, persuaded the recycling center in Szczecin to identify German
books and sell them to her for five zlotys each if the books were as thick as an encyclopedia or
scientific. (Sroka, p. 279) Sroka states that the Ministry of Education sent a letter to the Central
Office of Waste Management demanding that books be evaluated by librarians prior to pulping.
If the books were deemed to be of value, they were saved from recycling.
Some of the items recovered were of incredible value. The music collection of the Prussian
State Library in Berlin was one of the rarest and most valuable collections found in the former
German territory. It contained autographs by Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven, as well as a complete
manuscript of The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro. This collection was transferred to
Krakow in crates and was kept secret by authorities. Sroka states that the collection and others
like it were not made public for decades after the war, most likely because the knowledge that

Poland had these items could make negotiations with the Soviet Union for the return of Polish
cultural artifacts difficult.
There was also a political aspect to nationalizing library collections and museum artifacts after
the war in addition to salvaging Polish and German heritage. Poland wanted to be compensated
for the losses it suffered under Nazi rule. Polands restitution plans ideally included the recovery
of looted objects as well as repayment for irreplaceable losses from German collections. Polish
experts put together a list of what had been lost and a list of German artifacts they considered to
be acceptable replacements. Despite support from prominent sources, the United States and
Great Britain rejected the idea of taking national art from any country to serve as reparations. It
was decided instead that reparations should come from the Soviet Unions share.
Sroka concludes his article by speculating on possible solutions to adequately compensate for
Polish losses without taking artifacts of cultural German heritage from Germany. He suggests
that an acceptable idea may be to have Germany given Polish-related items in their museums
back to Poland. A fair exchange of identified collections, he states, may create a political climate
that is positive enough for the return of the German music collection. He also suggests long-term
loans, donations, joint-ownership and trusts; formal recognition of the importance to cultural
identity; the production of replicas; [and] withdrawl of the claim for restitution in exchange for
financial compensation. (Sroka, pp. 283-284.)
While the salvage of Polish and German libraries in former German territory may have been
culturally beneficial, it did create political tensions between Poland and Germany during the
Cold War. The time is right, Sroka states, to come up with a solution to the still-current problem
of reparations.

Works Consulted
Sroka, Marek. Forsaken and Abandoned: The Nationalization and Salvage of
Deserted, Displaced, and Private Library Collections in Poland, 1945-1948. Library &
Information History 28.4 (2012): 272-88.

University Library, University Library at Urbana-Champaign. Web. 31 October, 2014.

http://www.library.illinois.edu/people/bios/msroka/ (Links to an external site.)