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Several German libraries were involved in the restitution: 95 volumes come from the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, 93 volumes from the Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin (ZfL). A further 33 books came from the Saxon State Library - Dresden State and University Library, the Rostock University Library and the Greiz State Book and Engraving Collection. The identification of the books was based on the findings of the research project "Nazi-looted property after 1945: the role of the Central Office for Old Scientific Collections (ZwA)" carried out at the State Library. In the GDR, the ZwA was the central non-commercial office for the distribution of library property such as duplicates. This also included Nazi-looted property, which was redistributed in this way after 1945.

After the first books had been allocated, it quickly became clear from the centrally recorded provenance data and the information stored in the Provenance Wiki (https://provenienz.gbv.de/) that several cultural institutions were affected. The provenance research team at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin took over the preparation for the joint restitution. It was supported by the Commission pour la restitution des biens et l'indemnisation des victimes de spoliations antisémites (CIVS), with which it has been working repeatedly on restitution issues for several years. The important aspects here were both the content-related aspects relevant to the research and the establishment of contact with the heiresses, as well as monitoring the implementation of the restitution.

Marion Ackermann, President of the SPK, says: "This restitution is a prime example of co-operation between various German cultural institutions in the field of provenance research. I would particularly like to thank the CIVS for its significant contribution to making the restitution possible."

Born in Les Andelys in Normandy, Henry (also: Henri) Torrès came from a Jewish family and was politically active since his youth: he stood as a candidate for various communist party groups, defended far-left activists, worked as a journalist for L'Humanité, the newspaper of the French Communist Party, and occasionally worked for the theatre.

Torrès became famous after the First World War as a lawyer for numerous social and political celebrities. One of his greatest successes was his defence of Scholom Schwartzbard in 1927, who had shot the former Ukrainian president Symon Petlioura (1886-1938), who was living in exile in Paris, in the street because he held him responsible for the pogroms in Ukraine in which he had lost his family. With the help of 80 witnesses to the pogroms, Henry Torrès secured a spectacular acquittal for Schwartzbard. From this point onwards at the latest, he was known far beyond France.

From 1919 to 1928, Torrès was married to Jeanne, née Levylier, who was also Jewish and later became famous as the founder of a school and the last wife of French President Léon Blum. The marriage produced two sons, Jean and Georges. From 1930 to 1948, Torrès was married to the resistance fighter Suzanne, née Rosambert, who married the French general Jacques Massu after their separation.

Henry Torrès was the direct focus of the German occupying forces due to his Jewish origins and his legal and political activities. In his autobiography, he recounts that immediately after the occupation of Paris in 1940 and again in March 1941, the Germans searched his flat at 38 Avenue Hoche and carried out extensive confiscations.

After the beginning of the Second World War, Torrès worked in various positions in the French government's Ministère de l'information. As he had to give up his work for the government as a result of the German occupation and, as a Jewish lawyer and opponent of the capitulation and the armistice, had to expect reprisals from various sides, he fled to the USA via several intermediate stops. There he taught criminal law at the law faculty of the École Libre des Hautes Études Françaises, which was founded in New York during the war, and was active as a writer and journalist. He returned to France in November 1945. From 1948 to 1958, Torrès was a member of the Senate of the Seine for the RPF party (French People's Rally) founded by De Gaulle. He died in Paris on 4 January 1966.

Provenance of the books from the Torrès Collection

The 221 copies of the Torrès provenance identified in German libraries/institutions are works that were donated to him or him and his partners, primarily in the 1920s and 1930s, by the respective authors, with corresponding handwritten dedications. These are mostly political and historical publications, but there are also works of fiction and theatre plays. Some of the works were written by Jewish authors, and some have a connection to the recipient's communist-patriotic attitude. The dedicatees often refer to Torrès as a personal friend.

Among the few copies jointly dedicated to Torrès and his wife are, for example, works by the French poet, novellist and essayist Gabriel Faure, the renowned writer, literary scholar and historian André Maurois and the novellist and essayist Gabrielle Élise Victoire Logerot, who wrote under the pseudonym Gabrielle Réval.

Of the 95 copies of the Torrès provenance identified in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the majority were added to the collection between October 1946 and December 1954. The four copies identified in the Rostock University Library had been transferred from Berlin to Rostock at the same time (between April 1951 and June 1952) as exchange copies.

Researchers are now aware of several ways in which French book collections reached the predecessor institution of the State Library, the Prussian State Library, during the National Socialist era. However, it is also conceivable that these volumes were among the "abandoned" holdings of dissolved Nazi institutions at the end of the war.

The majority of the books now identified were distributed to various libraries from 1960 onwards by the Zentralstelle für wissenschaftliche Altbestände (ZwA): The 19 copies in the Staatliche Bücher- und Kupferstichsammlung Greiz had been given there around 1960.

The 10 copies from the Sächsische Landesbibliothek - Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden were only acquired via the ZwA between 1979 and 1982. The 93 copies identified at the Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin (ZfL) can also be assumed to have been acquired by the ZwA in 1979/80.

Press photos:www.preussischer-kulturbesitz.de/newsroom/presse/pressebilder.html