This session tells the story of the UCLA Library's repatriation of Judaica books to the Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP) within the context of the Holocaust and the looting of Jewish cultural artifacts. It details JMP's efforts at recovering lost materials and UCLA's process in preparing the items for return. It also include another case study of a restituted collection that was donated to the UCLA Library.
Speakers:
- Lisa Leff, Professor of History, American University; Director of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Michal Bušek, Jewish Studies Researcher, Jewish Museum in Prague
- Diane Mizrachi, Librarian for Jewish and Israel Studies and Social Sciences, UCLA Library
- Russell Johnson, Curator for History of Medicine and the Sciences, UCLA Library Special Collections
Moderator: Renata Fuchs, Lecturer, Department of European Languages and Transcultural Studies and Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, UCLA
About the Speakers
Dr. Lisa Leff (she/her) is a historian of European and Jewish history, specializing in the history of Jews in modern France. She is the author of Sacred Bonds of Solidarity: The Rise of Jewish Internationalism in Nineteenth Century France (2006), Colonialism and the Jews (2017), and The Archive Thief: the Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust (2015), which received the 2016 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish literature. She also directs the Mandel Center at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a research institute dedicated to advancing the field of Holocaust Studies around the world.
Michal Bušek (he/him) works as a Jewish Studies researcher in the Jewish Museum in Prague (JMP). He studied at Charles University in Prague in the Faculty of Hussite Theology, where he obtained a Master of Arts degree in Biblical and Jewish Studies and wrote a thesis on Problems of Shoah in Judaism. Since 2001, he has been working in the JMP's Library Department, where he he has been researching the provenance of the books. He oversees the agenda and database of 'original owners of the books’ and researches Library history. As a curator, he has prepared three exhibitions and cooperated on preparing JMP´s permanent exhibitions. He is a member of the Expert Panel for Property Transfer from the Collections of the JMP.
Dr. Diane Mizrachi (she/her) completed her Master of Library Science at Bar Ilan University in Israel where her thesis explored the concept of library anxiety. She began working at UCLA in 2002 and is currently the social sciences librarian and librarian for Jewish and Israel studies. Diane completed her Ph.D. in information studies at UCLA in 2011. Most of her research and publications focus on information literacy and students’ print and electronic reading behaviors, but she is currently immersed in the history and impact of Nazi-looted books
Russell A. Johnson (he/him) has been Curator for History of Medicine and the Sciences at UCLA Library Special Collections since 2008. He holds Masters degrees in Physiological Psychology (now known as Behavioral Neuroscience) and Library & Information Studies. Russell was honored twice as UCLA Librarian of the Year: in 2009, for building a collection of baby record books, which opened up a new area in historical childhood studies; and in 2019, for mentorship and outreach, including noteworthy teaching with rare and unique materials.
