Entry selected by Krzysztof Tyszka from the book “Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow. A guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive”, ed. by D. E. Fishman, M. Kupovetsky, V. Kuzelenkov
Microfilms are held by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.
Nazi-Looted Jewish Archives in Moscow. A guide to Jewish Historical and Cultural Collections in the Russian State Military Archive, ed. by D. E. Fishman, M. Kupovetsky, V. Kuzelenkov, Scranton - London 2010.
The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Task Force for the Occupied Territories (ERR) was established on Hitler's orders (5 July and 17 September 1940). Its mission was to plunder art, libraries, and archives owned by Jews and others who were declared enemies of the Reich. In a subsequent order, in 1942, the ERR's mandate was broadened to include the seizure of all materials of use to the ideological tasks of the Nazi regime. During the first year of its existence, the ERR was active in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. In Paris, it seized art from private collections owned by Jews. One of the ERR's priority activities was to provide books and archival records to the Hohe Schule, the planned university-level research and training facility for the Nazi elite, whose central library was in Berlin, and for the Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question, in Frankfurt am Main. The ERR established special headquarters and subordinate task forces in German-occupied territories; these constituted the ERR's executive organs. Following the German attack on the Soviet Union, in June 1941, the ERR's focus of activity shifted to the occupied Soviet territories, particularly to the plunder of books and archives in Minsk, Kiev, and Vilna. In the summer of 1943, it established a special depository for books from the occupied eastern territories, the Ostbücherei, in Ratibor (Polish: Raciborz), Silesia. The ERR ceased operation with the fall of the Nazi regime.
77 files
The collection includes a photocopy of G6ring's directive establishing headquarters in German-occupied territories for the confiscation of valuables from Jewish and Masonic organizations, Rosenberg's orders establishing the Task Force and laying out its objectives, as well as memoranda and correspondence of the ERR special headquarters in the Ukraine and Croatia. The collection further includes logs of searches carried out in Zagreb and Ragusa (Dubrovnik) among Jews and members of Masonic lodges; lists of Masonic lodges in Yugoslavia and lists of Jewish writers; inventories of Jewish belles lettres, and scientific and political literature; and a card file of Zagreb and Ragusa Jewish organizations and Masonic lodge members whose valuable books were confiscated.
Оперативный штаб Рейхсляйтера Розенберга по делам оккупированных областей (Берлин-Шарлоттенбург)