The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis
The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis
January – May 2022
“Would you risk your life to save a book?” That is the underlying question of The Book Smugglers: Partisans, Poets, and the Race to Save Jewish Treasures from the Nazis. The exhibition was curated by Holocaust Museum Houston and based on the book of the same name by David E. Fishman.
The Book Smugglers is the nearly unbelievable true story of ghetto residents who rescued thousands of rare books and manuscripts by hiding them on their persons, burying them in bunkers and smuggling them across borders. Set in Vilna, Lithuania, also known as the “Jerusalem of Lithuania” for their robust Jewish culture rich with art, music, literature, poetry, theater and opera, a small group of partisans and poets risked everything to save Jewish cultural treasures.
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