Our October movie matinee is "The Monuments Men" starring George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman. The movie will be showing Monday, Oct. 20 at 1:00 pm. An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners. Here are some titles about the Nazi theft of art works during the war.
The Lost Museum: the Nazi conspiracy to steal the world's greatest works of art by Hector Feliciano
"Feliciano focuses on five major collectionsof the Rothschilds, the Paul Rosenbergs, the Bernheim-Jeunes, the David-Weills and the Schlossesto illustrate how Nazis (and many others) took advantage of anti-Jewish laws to confiscate Jewish art." Publisher's Weekly
Saving Italy : the race to rescue a nation's treasures from the Nazis by Robert M. Edsel
"In this thrilling new history, Edsel (The Monuments Men) describes the valiant Allied efforts to safeguard the great cultural treasures of an Italy knee-deep in the violence of WWII. The story focuses on three groups: the British and American scholars who form the Allies' Monuments, Fine Art and Archive (MFAA) team tasked with finding and protecting priceless stolen artworks; the Vatican clergy and museum directors responsible for the safety of their own collections; and the Nazi leaders who coveted Italy's Titians, da Vincis, and Botticellis." Publisher's Weekly
Nazi Plunder : great treasure stories of World War II by Kenneth D. Alford
"During the war, Germany—and, later, the Allies—plundered Europe's historic treasures. The artwork alone, looted under Hitler's direction, exceeded the combined collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the Louvre. The story of these celebrated works of art and other vanished treasures—and the mystery of where they went—is a remarkable tale of greed, fraud, deceit, and treachery. Kenneth Alford's Nazi Plunder is the latest word on this fascinating subject." Barnes and Noble
Hitler's Holy Relics : a true story of Nazi plunder and the race to recover the crown jewels of the Holy Roman Empire by Sidney Kirkpatrick
"In this fast-paced history, Kirkpatrick (A Cast of Killers) describes the efforts of German-born Walter Horn, a U.S. Army first lieutenant and art historian, to locate the missing crown, orb, scepter, imperial sword, and ceremonial sword of the Holy Roman Empire in Europe at the end of WWII." Publisher's Weekly
The Amber Room : the fate of the world's greatest lost treasure by Catherine Scott-Clark
"One of the more enduring mysteries of lost treasures has been that of the Amber Room-a room in the Catherine Palace in Pushkin, outside of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), that was lined with amber panels given to Peter the Great in 1717 by Frederick I of Prussia. The panels disappeared during the 1941 Nazi invasion and have never been seen since." Library Journal
Rescuing da Vinci : Hitler and the Nazis stole Europe's great art, America and her allies recovered it by Robert M. Edsel
"Uses photographs to tell the untold story of the "Monuments Men" and their discovery of more than 1,000 repositories, many of which contained paintings, sculpture, furniture, and other treasures stolen by the Nazis."
The Monuments Men : Allied heroes, Nazi thieves, and the greatest treasure hunt in history by Robert M. Edsel
"The previously untold story of a little-known WWII Allied division whose mission was to track down European art and treasures that had been looted by the Nazis at Hitler's command"--Provided by the publisher.
