The Leo Baeck Institute London presents the latest and final instalment in the Library of Lost Books project: an exhibition hosted by Leo Baeck College and installed in the Leo Baeck College Library, where it will be on view from November 2026 to October 2027.
Curated by Dr Kinga S. Bloch, in collaboration with Cassy Sachar, the exhibition marks the conclusion of the Library of Lost Books research project (2023–2025), an international initiative led by the Leo Baeck Institutes in Jerusalem and London, together with the Friends of the Leo Baeck Institute Berlin. The project traced the whereabouts of a German-Jewish library confiscated by the National Socialists in 1942: the roughly 60,000-volume collection of the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies (Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums) in Berlin, closed by the Nazis and scattered across Europe and beyond.
Drawing on the work of citizen scientists across three continents, volunteers examined hundreds of books in libraries worldwide, gathering information on the whereabouts of 4,865 volumes from the original collection.
This venue holds 250 books from the Hochschule, including rare Judaica saved from Nazi Germany, among them the Herlingen Haggadah (1729–1730). Research here has offered valuable insights into the Hochschule’s efforts to build an archival collection documenting Jewish learning and institutional life across Europe and beyond.
Through photographs, documents and selected volumes, the exhibition traces the “secret paths of provenance” these books have taken since 1942, and shows how provenance research helps reconstruct their journeys.
Dr Joseph Cronin, Director of the Leo Baeck Institute London, said:
The Library of Lost Books turned provenance research into a shared, public task. Every book that was identified, whether in a university library or on a home bookshelf, added a new piece to the puzzle of what was stolen, where it ended up, and whose hands it passed through. In that sense, the exhibition is both a memorial to a destroyed institution and a record of what collective effort can achieve.
The exhibition is hosted at Leo Baeck College Library and will be on view from November 2026 to October 2027. It is free to visit during the library’s opening hours. Details on how to visit are on the Leo Baeck College Library website.
There is a launch event for this exhibition on 26 November 2026 at 6pm.
