ROBERT DAWSON PHOTOGRAPHY

LIBRARIES IN TIMES OF CONFLICT

This book proposal features work drawn from several projects made over the past 30 years while studing the complex importance of libraries. Dawson and Manchester looked at libraries in places of war, libraries that experienced natural disasters and ones that have endured intentional human destruction. They examined the precarious place of libraries that straddle political or cultural boundaries and the role that libraries play in helping people displaced by conflict. They examined how libraries engage with the contentious topics of race and identity. They also explored where libraries address various forms of violence in their communities and ways that they have helped these communities heal. Drawing from this large body of work, Dawson and Manchester focus now on how libraries have provided solace and shelter, knowledge and comfort, inspiration and hope in an uncertain world

In his book Defiant Gardens: Making Gardens in Wartime, writer Kenneth Helphand proposes that gardens in conflict zones can sometime become an act of resistance and resilience. Dawson and Manchester have photographed libraries in communities often wracked by conflict and strife. They have seen how libraries can sometimes be part of the solution by resisting historical or ongoing violence while also preserving memory. New York Times writer David Brooks described an appropriate response to our contentious times as “Defiant Humanism.” Libraries are sometimes referred to as one of our most humanistic institutions.  Like gardens, libraries can inspire hope and resilience in communities that sometimes lack both. This book is dedicated to these defiant libraries.

Destruction of the Public Library and Temple of the Winds following Russian evacuation during the Crimean War, Sevastopol, Ukraine 1855<p>Courtesy of the Library of Congress collection, The Empty Library, memorial to Nazi book burning, Berlin, Germany, 2016<p>The memorial the Empty Library, by Israeli artist Micha Ullman, is located on one of the sites of the many Nazi book burnings in 1933. The installation commemorates a book burning staged by students and faculty of nearby Humboldt University before a large audience at the university's Old Library. The books were mainly by Jewish, Communist, liberal, and socially critical authors. The memorials empty bookshelves, sunken into the ground and painted stark white, are large enough to hold the estimated 20,000 books burnt by the Nazis. A nearby plaque with words from a play by the poet Heinrich Heine states, that was but a prelude / where they burn books / they will ultimately burn people as well., Book Museum, Russian State Library (Lenin), Moscow, Russia, 2016 <p>This library was one of the most difficult for us to gain access to. For many months I wrote to the library and never received a reply. On the day I photographed the severe, Soviet-era exterior, Ellen wandered inside the library and succeeded in getting us an appointment to photograph the interior the next day. We were assigned a wonderful young librarian who showed us the Book Museum and then gave us a tour throughout the library. I learned later that the Lenin Library, as it was once known, had become home for many of the books stolen by the Soviet Army at the end of WWII, some of which had been stolen earlier from the USSR by the German Army., Collection of Jewish Musical Folklore, UNESCO Memory of the World Register, National Library of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2016<p>In the National Library of Ukraine in Kyiv we discovered a collection of Jewish Musical Folklore from 1912 to 1947. It contained written music and recordings, some recorded on wax cylinders, of a culture that was largely killed and erased from memory during WWII. The collection was part of UNESCO's memory of the World Programme which is meant to preserve valuable archival material throughout the world against collective amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time and climatic conditions, and willful and deliberate destruction. The voices in this archive had been stilled, but the memory continues. This program is truly a memory of the world., Bullet damaged book, The Ossolineum, Wroclaw, Poland, 2016 <p>Founded in 1817, The Ossolineum is a library and archive, publishing house, and research center of enormous significance to Polish cultural and national identity. During WWII, much of the library's collections were plundered, scattered or deliberately destroyed. Barely one-third of the artifacts and printed items from the Ossolineum survived the war. One sadly symbolic item from the archive was this book pierced by a bullet in WWI., Ancient Roman papyri, Papyri Collection, Victor Emmanuel III National Library, Naples, Italy, 2018<p>This was a rare example of "bibliocide" in which the destruction of the book preserved it. Papyri are the delicate remains of ancient Greek and Roman scrolls written on papyrus. These scrolls were carbonized by extreme heat from the volcanic ash that buried them in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. Discovered in 1752 in what is now called the House of Papyri in nearby Herculaneum, the contents of these scrolls had remained a mystery for several centuries. The site was the only complete library recovered from the ancient world, and the National Library of Naples is the primary repository of these excavations. Faint traces of the ink lettering survived the catastrophe, and, while we were visiting, we saw researchers using a new laser and x-ray technology developed by NASA to read both sides of these extremely fragile and easily broken carbonized scrolls., Book damaged in 1966 flood, National Central Library, Florence, Italy, 2018<p>This is the largest of Italy's national libraries and one of the most important in Europe. In 1966, a major flood of the Arno River in Florence devastated nearly one third of the National Central Library's holdings; never had so many priceless books been water-damaged in one event. The conservation techniques used at that time were not up to the task of rescuing and preserving books on such a large scale. Today's library conservation practices were born in the aftermath of the 1966 flood. We visited the library's conservation lab, housed in an old convent, and I photographed the continuing restoration efforts 52 years after the flood. A mark on the main entrance to the library showed us the flood's high point several feet above the top of my outstretched hand., Interior, restored Anna Amalia Library, Weimar, Germany, 2016<p>Weimar was the capital of Germany during the disastrous Weimar Republic of the 1920s, and it is also famous for its association with the "golden age" of German classical culture. Today the city is filled with monuments to its former glory days. The Duchess Anna Amalia Library is one of those beautiful relics; its Rococo Hall is filled with busts of the literary giants who once roamed here. One of the library's most famous patrons was the poet, novelist, and natural scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The main building, called the Green Castle, was built between 1562 and 1565. In 2004, a fire destroyed the Green Castle's main wing along with 50,000 volumes, of which 12,500 were considered irreplaceable. However, some 6,000 historical works were saved, including the 1534 Luther Bible and a collection of natural scientist Alexander von Humboldt's papers, by being passed from hand to hand out of the building while the fire was raging. Restoration of salvaged volumes lasted until 2015., Examining a book, Conservation Department, Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, DC (grid), 2015<p>The Folger houses the world's largest Shakespeare collection and rare materials from the early modern period (1500-1750). Emily Folger wrote of her belief that the poet is one of our best sources, one of the wells from which we Americans draw our national thought, our faith, and our hope. It as this deep connection between Shakespeare and America that led the Folgers to establish the library in 1932. We were commissioned to do a two-year photographic study of the Library which resulted in our 2018 book Photographing Shakespeare: The Folger Shakespeare Library. The conservation department helps preserve the literature of Shakespeare's era to protect against the ravages of time and neglect. This sequence shows an archivist using intelligent hands to examine the condition of an ancient manuscript for its conservation., Director of National Library of Anthropology and History, Mexico City, Mexico, 2023<p>This is the largest and most visited museum in Mexico. It is considered a national treasure and a symbol of the country's identity. Their national Library's Mexican Codex Collection is one of the largest and most important of the world and is recognized as a Memory of the World by UNESCO. Director Baltazar Brito holds a reproduction of one of remaining codices which were almost entirely destroyed by the Spanish conquerors as heretical objects., Statue of Cervantes and painting of Spanish destruction of Indigenous knowledge, Biblioteca Publica de Universidad Michoacana, Morelia, Mexico, 2023<p>Built in 1660, this former convent now houses the public library for the University of Michoacan. American artist Hollis Holbrook placed his painting of the Spanish Conquest under the former choir loft. Ironically, in this former church next to a statue of the famous Spanish writer Cervantes, we see Spanish priests and soldiers burning the Aztec codices containing the knowledge of the enslaved Indigenous people staring at their loss., Librarians in front of Children's Library, Dnipro, Ukraine, 2016<p>One of our favorite groups of librarians was in this library in the mid-sized city of Dnipro. The librarians at the Children's Library were incredibly welcoming and honored Ellen with a generous gift of many traditional Ukrainian dolls. The library sometimes hired refugees from the nearby ongoing conflict in Donbas in eastern Ukraine, to tutor patrons and assist librarians. When we visited, a bottlecap fundraising drive was being conducted at the library to provide prostheses for injured soldiers returning from that same war. The city of Dnipro has regularly been shelled and attacked by the Russian Army since their invasion of the rest of Ukraine in 2022., West and East Berlin Cold War-era libraries, Berlin, Germany (diptych), 2016 <p>The Amerika Gedenkbibliothek public library (America Memorial Library, left) was opened in 1954 in West Berlin facing the East. Before the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961 many people were able to travel freely between East and West Berlin. The Gedenkbibliothek was built, in part, with American money and was used as a Cold War era soft-power tool to highlight the West's open and free access to books and information, freedoms denied to the people of Soviet-controlled East Berlin. In response, East Germany built the elegant Berliner Stadtbibliothek library (Berlin City Library, right) in East Berlin. Formerly, these two libraries were on opposite sides of the Berlin Wall, front line of the Cold War and one of the most troubled borders on Earth., Men's prayer area, Western Wall, Old City, Jerusalem, 2019<p>The indoor men's prayer area north of the Western Wall's outdoor section contains a small, well-used library of religious books. Here was the massive Wilson's Arch, originally constructed during the expansion of the Second Jewish Temple, begun by Herod the Great in the first century BCE. The Wall is considered the holiest place for Jews to pray. I didn't expect that I would be able to photograph here, but when I noticed others taking cell phone photos, I did the same and no one seemed to mind. I then pulled out my Nikon to take a few more photos and again no one blinked an eye. Everyone seemed intent on praying or reading from sacred texts., Entrance, Al-Aqsa Mosque Library, Old City, Jerusalem, 2019<p>The al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the most sacred places of Islam. Its location in the heart of Old Jerusalem makes it a flashpoint whose danger persists today. Periodically, the Israeli Army sweeps through this area, which they call the Temple Mount, and the Muslims call Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary). The mosque itself is open only to Muslims but located right next door is the al-Aqsa Mosque Library, which is open to the public. The library contains several rare books that, during our visit, were being scanned and catalogued. The Childrens Library was delightful and included many well-used Harry Potter books in Arabic. The presence of the baby carriage and young child at the library entrance was a hopeful contrast to the surrounding contention and violence., International border line through Haskell Free Library and Opera House, Stanstead, Qubec, Canada, and Derby Line, Vermont, United States, 2019<p>I first began to appreciate the relationship between libraries and borders when we visited the Haskell Free Library and Opera House in 2005. Incredibly, the building straddles the Canadian American border and is an early twentieth-century expression of international respect and cooperation. That gesture seems quaint today in our era of heightened border security and fear. But I hope that, in the future, more libraries can be built atop political boundaries around the world as a way of building cooperation and promoting peace. What would a library look like on the border between, say, the West Bank and Israel? Or Ukraine and Russia? Or Pakistan and India? Or even a library on the border between Mexico and the United States?, Library built on border to counter poverty and cartel activities, Agua Preita Library, Agua Preita, Mexico, 2024<p>Agua Prieta is a Mexican town across the border from Douglas, AZ. In 1989, El Chapo and his Sinaloa Cartel dug a tunnel here under the border to smuggle drugs and weapons. Later, the Mexican government chose to build a starchitect designed library in Agua Prieta to counter the prevailing poverty and hopelessness. It was such an unusual act that The New York Times even published an article about it, which is how we found out about this surprising library. It seemed to epitomize our interest in libraries as places of healing in struggling conflict zones., Jungle Books Library, The Jungle refugee camp (since destroyed), Calais, France, 2016<p>For five years, this refugee camp, the most famous in Europe, was home to over eight thousand migrants trying to reach England via the nearby Port of Calais. The Jungle was filled with desperate men (the women and children had been moved to a different camp), and for many, this camp was the end of the line after an arduous journey fleeing war, starvation, and poverty. We met refugees here from many parts of the Muslim world as well as from many African countries. The volunteer tutors we met were mostly younger women and mostly British. The books in this library once offered education and sanctuary, but they disappeared with the refugees when the camp was destroyed by the French government in 2016. The Jungle was a sad place, and the Jungle Library was one of the few bright lights in a dark time., Teacher and refugee students, Project Elea Library, Eleonas Refugee Camp, Athens, Greece, 2018<p>We ended our Fulbright stay in Greece by visiting a refugee camp on the outskirts of Athens. I photographed its library/classroom where a group of children was taking a language lesson. Their shoes outside the door reminded me of refugees belongings we had recently seen washed up on the shores of the Aegean Island of Samos. We finished by photographing a room leased by a group called Libraries Without Borders and containing an "Ideas Box" designed by Philippe Starck. I was fascinated by the creative thinking that went into producing this traveling library and resource center. The Ideas Box had just come from Jordan, and after Athens, it would travel on to another place of need., Children and librarian, Garden Library for Refugees and Migrant Workers, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2019<p>This project was housed in a former bomb shelter and had no walls, doors, or guards. The Garden Library sees access to books as a fundamental human right offering the possibility of both escape and shelter from daily misfortunes. The library's collection consists of approximately 3,500 books in Mandarin Chinese, Amharic, Thai, Tagalog, Arabic, French, Spanish, Nepalese, Bengali, Hindi, Turkish, Romanian, and English. Situated in a poor neighborhood of Tel Aviv, the library is only open at night because the refugee community it serves can bring their children here only after work. While I photographed, drug deals and prostitution were taking place all around us. I warily made images using my tripod in this sketchy garden park while Ellen watched my back. As we have seen in many places, the library was a calming harbor in a sea of trouble and struggle., High Prairie Public Library, High Prairie, AB, Canada, 2022<p>This small town with an unusual looking library is in the heart of the Peace River Valley in Canada's High Prairie. Canada has the third largest number of Ukrainians in the world, after Russia and Ukraine itself. Most have settled into the prairies of western Canada including this part of Alberta. All the librarians I spoke with in this region were descendants of the last large wave of refugees fleeing Ukraine over 100 years ago. They have now been told to prepare their libraries for another big surge of Ukrainians fleeing Putin's war., English as Second Language students, Adult School, Stockton, CA (grid), 2016<p>Starting with a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the Creative Work Fund in 2013, we spent six years documenting local efforts to fight poverty, high crime, low education, and hopeless in one of the least literate places in the United States - Stockton and San Joaquin County, CA. Our project On Reading in the San Joaquin also focused on some of the surprising efforts to overcome these harsh realities by using libraries and education to become an engine of hope. This grid shows the face of immigration in America today in one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse cities in the county., Mural to Indigenous martyr Almighty Voice, Wapiti Regional Library, Duck Lake, SK, Canada, 2019<p>The small town of Duck Lake is an isolated one, over 150 miles north of the nearest large city of Regina, Saskatchewan. It was here in Duck Lake that a great nineteenth-century Indigenous uprising called the Northwest Rebellion began. The old Victoria school is now the Wapiti Public Library. On the building is a mural of the Cree man Almighty Voice. In 1896, he was killed in a gun battle with authorities for the alleged crime of slaughtering a settler's cow. Duck Lake is also the site of one of Canada's last residential schools for Indigenous children; it remained in operation until 1996. These schools were the site of one of the darkest chapters of the European settlement of Canada. Indigenous children were taken away from their parents and forced to abandon their native language and culture. This tragedy played out in the US as well, with terrible consequences. These programs also bring up uncomfortable questions for our project, which has always championed education and literacy. In Duck Lake and other residential schools, the institutions may have had good intentions, but education and literacy for Indigenous children sometimes became a form of cultural genocide rather than a source of hope and a way to a better future., No More Stolen Sisters sign, Ferney Heritage Library, Ferney, BC, Canada, 2022<p>The red dresses and the sign in the window "No More Stolen Sisters" refer to missing Indigenous women. The dresses are an aesthetic response to the more than 1,000 missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. The artist, Jamie Black, creates this work to evoke a presence through the marking of an absence. She chose the color red after an Indigenous friend told her that this is the only color spirits can see. Red dresses are used to call the spirits of missing and murdered women and girls back to their loved ones., Learning Center, Tule River Reservation, CA, USA (diptych), 2010<p>The Tule River Reservation is located on the southeastern edge of Californias San Joaquin Valley. It consists of several tribes that once inhabited a much larger part of the Valley and the nearby Sierras. After gold was discovered in California in 1848, the Natives in this relatively isolated part of the state were overwhelmed by American settlers and ravaged by disease, starvation, and injustice. By 1860, the Indian population in California was only 20% of what it had been ten years earlier. Settlers around the growing town of Porterville began to demand removal of the Tule River Indians to a more distant location. The Reservation was relocated to its current site in 1873, in part, to separate the Indians from unscrupulous individuals who entered the Reservation to entice the Natives to buy cheap liquor. As I photographed the Tule River Indian Education Center, I noticed a sign signaling a continuity with that earlier tradition which stated, Say No to Drugs and Dealers Help Protect Our Children!, Father-son reading statue, Corozal Public Library, Corozal Town, Belize, 2023<p>The area now called Belize was believed to be settled by English pirates or shipwrecked buccaneers seeking lumber and/or a safe haven in the mid-1600s. It later became the English colony of British Honduras. The patrons that use this 88-year-old library are a mix of races and cultures, most notably the Maya Mestizos who fled during the 19th Century Caste War from nearby Mexico. The father-son reading sculpture is an expression of the central importance of the library in this very poor town., Students under photos of massacred Mayans, Mayan Community Center/Library, Colonia Pacux, Baja Verapaz, Guatemala, 2007<p>While on assignment for the environmental group International Rivers, I photographed a resettlement village for the Indigenous victims of a government-led massacre who were resisting a dam project on the Rio Negro 25 years before. This community center/library implores the Mayan not to forget the mass murder of their people., Tutwiler Collection of Southern History and Literature, Birmingham Public Library, Birmingham, AL, 2021<p>Martin Luther King described Birmingham, AL in 1963 as probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. It was nicknamed Bombingham because of the large number of bombings including when members of the Ku Klux Klan blew up the Black 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 in a terrorist attack killing four girls and injuring 22 others. The bombing marked a turning point in the Civil Rights movement and contributed to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Birmingham Public Library (now a Research Library) quietly desegregatedduring the violent summer of 1963, functioning as a lone calming force to help with racial reconciliation. While other public accommodations such as public schools remained segregated, the successful integration of public libraries resulted in libraries being some of the first Southern civic institutions to desegregate., Beaufort-St. Helena Library, St. Helena Island, SC, 2021<p>The library design was inspired by the surrounding Gullah/Geechee people who were liberated from slavery by the Union Army early in the Civil War in 1861. It was one of the first places in the United States where emancipated slaves voted, bought property, and created churches, schools, and businesses. Northern teachers and missionaries came here during and after the War to help the newly freed slaves with the long process of gaining literacy and education. The nearby Reconstruction Era National Historical Park was established in 2017 by President Barrack Obama to preserve and commemorate local activities that occurred during the Reconstruction era after the Civil War. St. Helena Island continues today to be the center of the unique Gullah/Geechee culture, language, and cuisine., Confederate flag, Jefferson Davis Presidential Library, Biloxi, MS, 2021<p>Located on the Gulf Coast, the Beauvoir estate was where former Confederate President Jefferson Davis lived his final years and worked on his memoir after the Civil War. It is now a National Historic Landmark. This remnant of the Confederacy is called the Beauvoir Stars and Bars Flag. It is thought to come from the United Daughters of the Confederacy and may have been shown at the dedication of early 20th Century Confederate monuments to help perpetuate the myth of the Southern Lost Cause. Many of these monuments have recently been torn down., St. Louis Arch and site of former library, N. St. Louis, MO, USA (next to Ferguson, MO), 2012<p>We asked a few elderly African American men where the old library was in this poor North St. Louis neighborhood. They pointed to an empty lot across the street and said that it had been torn down a few years ago without any replacement library being built. As I photographed the desolate space and the St. Louis Gateway Arch in the distance, we did'nt understand that we were standing right on the boundary with Ferguson, MO. Two years later this troubled city with a long history of racial strife would become world famous for the 2014 killing of Michael Brown by a police officer and the ensuing civil unrest. During this difficult time the Ferguson Public Library was one of the few buildings in the heart of the troubles not put to the torch. A sign in the library read: During difficult times, the library is a quiet oasis where we can catch our breath, learn, and think about what to do next. Please help keep our oasis peaceful and serene. Thank you!, Site of former library destroyed in 1921 massacre, Tulsa, OK, 2021<p>New luxury apartments being built on the site of a library destroyed 100 years ago in the Greenwood neighborhood. In the Tulsa race riot of 1921, attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood - at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, commonly known as Black Wall Street. Whites burned 1000 Black homes, 5 hotels, 31 restaurants, 21 grocery stores, 1 school and Tulsas only Black public library. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history., Airliner converted into library, Avion Biblioteca, Iztapalapa, Mexico City, Mexico, 2023<p>Iztapalapa is one of Mexico City's most violent neighborhoods, especially for women. The sign in front of airline/library reads "Beware, Machismo Kills Forever". The blue gondola above the plane is a way that Mexico City is trying to provide some security for women traveling between different parts of the neighborhood. The Avion Biblioteca is another way the government is trying to provide alternatives to the ongoing poverty and violence., Exterior at night, Juan Jos Arreola Library, Guadalajara, Mexico, 2023<p>This stunning library is named after a renowned Mexican writer born in the local state of Jalisco. It is part of the University of Guadalajara but is open to the public. The region is known for significant drug and gang violence. More than 115,000 people have been kidnapped in recent years throughout Mexico. Jalisco is at the heart of the crisis, topping lists of states with the most disappeared. Here, over 15,000 people are currently missing with most cases caused by organized crime. The corruption of Guadalajara's police and security forces has enabled the Cartels to disappear victims with impunity and dominate the city. Inside the library are large sculptures of animals made from confiscated Cartel guns., Librarian, OH Close Youth Correctional Facility, Stockton, CA, 2017<p>Stockton is the buckle of Californias prison belt and a prime feeder to its school-to-prison pipeline. While we were at the prison library, we photographed a program called Father2Child where teenaged prisoners were recorded reading a childrens book. Then the recording and book were sent to the fathers child. The program was meant to build a relationship between the father and child that might not exist, especially if the prisoner was serving a long sentence. It was heartbreaking to see some of the teenaged prisoners struggle to read even the simplest childrens book. Seventy percent of the incarcerated in American prisons are illiterate or can barely read., Business class, Deuel Prison Library, San Joaquin County, CA, 2013<p>This facility had a long history of being violent and dangerous. It had been called a "gladiator school" in the past because of large number of fights and homicides taking place here. Access to the prison library was a special privilege and during our visit these prisoners were studying the concept of bitcoins. The facility closed in 2021 due to budget cutbacks., Handmade figurers of three massacred Uvalde children, El Progresso Memorial Library, Uvalde, TX (triptych), 2023<p>The Robb Elementary School shooting occurred in May 2022 in Uvalde, TX. Nineteen young students were killed along with two faculty members, and 17 students were injured but survived. The Times of India reported Thousands of unsolicited gifts have been flooding into the Uvalde library including childrens books, care packages and money to support programs. Rather than emphasize the unspeakable death of Uvaldes children, our visit here was to record how a heroic library could be a positive force in a community desperately in need of finding a way through a very dark time. One moving gift was a stack of 19 boxes, each containing a hand-made wooden cut-out painted figure of each victim. This made each of the lost children and teachers seem very real., Prisoners' Section book, Nablus Public Library, Nablus, Palestinian Territories, 2019<p>This library contains an archive of materials made and used by Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons between 1975 and 1995. The books gave rise to a self-education movement and stimulated political debate among prisoners. The collection contains 8,000 volumes of published books and 870 notebooks. This volume appears to have been used to pass notes between prisoners., Al-Bireh Public Library, Al-Bireh, Palestine (adjacent to Ramallah), 2019<p>This library is a vibrant and important center of culture and learning. Although it only has six employees, the library maintains seven-days-a-week service. In addition, the staff coordinates trips to historic locations, reading contests, book discussions, music festivals, lecturers by writers and intellectuals, etc. The history of the Al-Bireh Public Library is entwined with that of Palestinian resistance. In the past it has been hard for them to get books because of Israeli law., Special Collections Librarian, Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Jerusalem, Israel, 2019<p>Memory weighs heavily at Yad Vashem, Israels official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. This monument is dedicated to preserving the memory of the dead. Upon entering the Hall of Names, a memorial to the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, one is struck by the sheer scale of the loss. Our special collections librarian guide helped us navigate through a very sorrowful day., Damaged Torah, The Torah Doctor, Jerusalem, Israel, 2019 Machon Ot is a leading authority in Torah scroll identification, repair, and restoration, and he works in partnership with Israels National Library. He is the son of Holocaust survivors and is possessed of an intensity of spirit but also a warm, engaging personality. He showed us the many Torahs that he had repaired. He also told us many stories, including one of a German Jewish WWI veteran who lost a leg in the war and received an Iron Cross for his bravery. Thinking his war hero status would protect him from the Nazis, he stayed in Germany and was eventually sent to a concentration camp. To protect a sacred Torah, he used it to replace his wooden leg. Somehow, he and the Torah survived the war, and he later moved to Israel. Mr. Ot showed us a picture of the veteran in his WWI uniform, and then a photo of the veterans great-grandson carrying the same Torah at his bar mitzvah..