Resumen de Collections et bliothèques d'art spoliées par les nazies, deux pertes irréparables
Art collections and libraries plundered by the nazis, two irreparable losses.
Research in recent years has shed some light on one of the continually undervalued aspects of Nazi violence: the plundering across Europe, and particularly in France, of thousands (or millions) of objets of cultural property. Collective memories had sometimes retained works of art, and especially paintings, whose symbolic weight was always preeminent in the imaginary. But the theft (or sometimes, destruction) of painting was not the only sign of the Nazi will for power over soul and spirit: sculptures, decorative art, graphic works, furniture, musical instruments, archives, and books were hunted down with as much determination as were those who owned them. These goods were often seized together and after several stages of selection that dismembered, or even destroyed them, were either taken to Germany, or stored or abandoned in France once they no longer seemed to have value for the occupiers.
