Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin

In 2015, a book from the library of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies ("Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums") was handed over to the Abraham Geiger Kolleg in Potsdam.

Founded in Berlin on 6 May 1872, the Hochschule was an independent educational institution dedicated to the preservation, advancement and dissemination of Jewish studies. The Jewish scholar Abraham Geiger (1810–1874) was one of the Hochschule’s founding fathers. Having already been subjected to persecution in Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards, the institution was finally closed on 19 July 1942 and its property confiscated. The sole remaining teacher and rabbi, Leo Baeck, was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943 along with the remaining students.

The book entered the collection of the Berlin City Library (Berliner Stadtbibliothek, BStB) in 1946 after the end of the war. It was provided by the Salvage Office for Academic Libraries (Bergungsstelle für wissenschaftliche Bibliotheken), Salvage Order No. 15, from the depot of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA) on Eisenacher Straße in Berlin-Schöneberg.

The restitution was carried out in cooperation with the Bavarian State Library, which had also identified books from the Hochschule in its own collection.