Why read The Archive Thief?

Book cover of The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust

Book description

Born into poverty in Russian Poland in 1911, Zosa Szajkowski (Shy-KOV-ski) was a self-made man who managed to make a life for himself as an intellectual, first as a journalist in 1930s Paris, and then, after a harrowing escape to New York in 1941, as a scholar. Although he never…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Archive Thief as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Ari Joskowicz

Author

Leff’s book is the story of a Polish-born historian of French Jewish history who first salvaged lost documents after the Holocaust before eventually coming to steal and resell them to US and Israeli libraries and archives.

A great read, the book is the best kind of biography: it offers a vivid image of a largely forgotten group of post-Holocaust scholars and raises big questions about who has the right to own historical documents and the way their assembly determines what we know about the past.

I found this book inspiring because it shows how exciting a story about archives and…

From Ari's list on The best books that uncover hidden and marginalized histories.