The Looted Books Project based in Nuremberg, Germany, aims to return thousands of books stolen during the Holocaust to the descendants of their rightful owners. Genealogists with JewishGen and the Leo Baeck Institute, both in New York, volunteered to help with the effort.
“For us, doing our research is not just about finding names on a page or on a tree but really recreating a line to the past that in many cases was severed during the Holocaust,” said Karen Franklin, director of outreach at JewishGen and director of family research at the Leo Baeck Institute. “This is for us a sacred task, and also a very satisfying and rewarding one.”
The volunteers have returned more than 100 books in the past few months.
”When they heard about this project, I believe they were all inspired by a concept called tikkun olam — to repair the world. They all wanted to repair the world in their little way,” said Franklin, a world-renowned expert on German Jewish genealogy. “This is really a wonderful way to use genealogy research in really helping others.”
Franklin attended the RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City to connect with other genealogists and sat down for an interview as part of the Deseret News’ “Yellow Couch” series.
