World War II in Ukraine:

Plunder of Ukraine: Report by SS-Oberstrumfuehrer Ferster November 10, 1942: "Expropriate everything of value."

by
Andrew Gregorovich


Plunder of Ukraine: Report by SS-Oberstrumfuehrer Ferster November 10, 1942: "Expropriate everything of value."

"Co. 4 in which I was employed seized in Kiev the library of the medical research institute. All equipment, scientific staff, documentation and books were shipped out to Germany.

"We appropriated rich trophies in the library of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences which possessed singular manuscripts of Persian, Abyssinian and Chinese writings, Russian and Ukrainian chronicles, incunabula by the first printer Ivan Fedorov, and rare editions of Shevchenko, Mickiewicz, Ivan Franko.

"Expropriated and sent to Berlin were many exhibits from Kiev's Museums of Ukrainian Art, Russian Art, Western and Oriental Art and the Taras Shevchenko Museum...

"As soon as the troops seize a big city, there arrive in their wake team leaders with all kinds of specialists to scan museums, art galleries, exhibitions, cultural and art institutions, evaluate their state and expropriate everything of value." (History Teaches a Lesson, p. 176).


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Copyright © 1995 Andrew Gregorovich

Reprinted from FORUM Ukrainian Review No. 92, Spring 1995


since March 1st 1997