The Book Smugglers
Book •
David Fishman's 'The Book Smugglers' examines the actions of the Vilna Ghetto's paper brigade, the prisoners tasked with sorting and saving books and archival materials under Nazi occupation, and how those efforts sought to preserve Jewish culture amid destruction.
Drawing on memoirs, archival sources, and survivor testimony, Fishman reconstructs the clandestine networks and cultural stakes of rescuing books, manuscripts, and artifacts.
The book situates these acts within broader themes of cultural resistance, memory, and the ethics of preservation during genocide.
Fishman connects individual actors, including Avrom Sutzkever, to institutional histories of YIVO and other repositories.
The study highlights how material culture survived through risky efforts and later became central to postwar archival recovery and scholarship.
Drawing on memoirs, archival sources, and survivor testimony, Fishman reconstructs the clandestine networks and cultural stakes of rescuing books, manuscripts, and artifacts.
The book situates these acts within broader themes of cultural resistance, memory, and the ethics of preservation during genocide.
Fishman connects individual actors, including Avrom Sutzkever, to institutional histories of YIVO and other repositories.
The study highlights how material culture survived through risky efforts and later became central to postwar archival recovery and scholarship.
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