Holocaust survivors visit exhibition on Nazi loot

The 81-year-old Holocaust survivor Monique Reisner visits the exhibition “Stolperseiten” in the Frankfurt University Library. It still has Nazi-looted items in its inventory.

Frankfurt – In the “Stolperseiten” exhibition, in which the university library presents interim results from a provenance research project, 81-year-old Monique Reisner bends over a sheet on which books and paintings are listed. The list was once written by a Jewess who hoped to save not only her life but also her property in the Third Reich. Monique Reisner’s parents succeeded in the first, but her father lost almost everything he owned. When the Holocaust survivor, who lives in France, happened to read about the exhibition in an FR article, she knew immediately that she really wanted to see it.

“I am not looking for my father’s possessions. It is important that history is processed. That’s why I’m grateful to the provenance research team at the University Library for doing this work,” says Monique Reisner, who now lives in Nice, right at the beginning of the tour to which Bernhard Wirth, head of the provenance project, and the provenance researcher Ulrike Vogl invited them to have.

Exhibition on Nazi loot in Frankfurt: 80,000 books are to be examined

The research project of the university library, which is scheduled to run for four years, deals with Nazi looted items that are still in their holdings. Vogl and her colleague Daniel Dudde want to examine the origin of 80,000 books by 2024 with the help of student assistants. Both curated the exhibition, which can be seen in the central library in Bockenheim until August 28th.

Monique Reisner is touched by the list that the Jewess Jenny Merzbach once wrote. Her father must have written a similar one when he decided to flee in 1939. He had an import and export business in Berlin and wanted to go to the USA. A forwarding agency was supposed to bring his possessions to Le Havre so that they could be shipped from there. But nothing ever arrived. “Eight tons of furniture, sculptures and books – everything was looted,” says the 81-year-old.

Exhibition in Frankfurt: Difficult childhood of a Holocaust survivor

Her father was waiting in Paris for his visa. He met Monique Reisner’s mother, who wanted to emigrate to Palestine. But the war ruined all plans to leave the country. When she was heavily pregnant, her mother was taken to the Camp de Gurs concentration camp, which was run by the Vichy government on behalf of the Nazis. Her father managed to ransom her and others associated with her with what he still had. All of them, a total of seven adults and Monique, who was born in the meantime, survived the Holocaust hiding in a small apartment in Nice. “There were mattresses everywhere, it was tight. I only learned to speak very late,” says the 81-year-old.

After the war the family lived in Paris. “My father loved to take me to auctions. I think he was hoping to find something else,” says Monique Reisner. If anything else from his possession turns up, would you be interested in a restitution? “No,” she says, that’s her father’s story, not hers.

The descendants of the persecuted react differently when a book is found by relatives, says Ulrike Vogl. “Some don’t want to be reminded of the past, others are happy when they get something back because it’s the only thing they have left from their relatives.” Later she talks about Israeli visitors who saw the exhibition. They saw Jenny Merzbach’s list in the display case and said they knew her descendants. (Anja Laud)

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