Arnold Berney

In 2019 two books from the library of the lawyer, pianist and historian Dr. Arnold Berney could be returned.

Arnold Berney was born on 14 May 1897 in Mainz. He studied law and history in Heidelberg and Freiburg, where he received an assistant post after his habilitation.

In 1933 he was dismissed due to the law for the "restoration of the civil service" ("Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums"). In 1936 Berney became a history lecturer at the Lehranstalt für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin. Immediately after the November Pogroms in 1938, he emigrated to Palestine. His library of about 1600 volumes was confiscated in the port of Hamburg.

In Jerusalem Arnold Berney worked at the Hebrew University and founded a family with Hildegard Jäckel (1906-2008) with whom he had two sons. Arnold Berney died on 29 December 1943.

A small part of the library (about 30 books) was identified after 1945 in the Offenbach Archival Depot (OAD) and returned to Hildegard Berney in 1950 through Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc.

The volumes now returned come from a depot of the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt - RSHA) at Eisenacher Str. 11-13 in Berlin Schöneberg. The RSHA had collected looted books from all over Europe there. Some of these books were distributed to libraries in Berlin by the Salvaging Office ("Bergungsstelle") after the end of World War II in 1945.

The ZLB would like to thank Bettina Farack and Dr. Michael Matthiesen for their support in returning the books.