Saving Jewish History
Jewish scholars in Lithuania risked death in WWII to save their literature from the Nazis.
By Ari Daniel
During World War II, the Nazis wanted to use Jewish texts to prove their racial theories about Jews correct. So they forced a group of Jewish intellectuals, who called themselves the Paper Brigade, to find these documents by sorting through the vast libraries of Vilna, Lithuania. All other materials were sent to be destroyed. Risking their lives, the Paper Brigade smuggled some of the books they found back into the ghetto in an effort to rescue the culture and spirit of Vilna.