Online Book Talk: Plunder and Survival

In Plunder & Survival: Stories of Theft, Loss, Recovery and Migration of Nazi-Uprooted Art, Suzanne Loebl tells the story of the Nazi looting of art in World War II Europe by looking at the human side: the people who lost the art, those who stole and monetized it for Hitler, and those who helped save it. Plunder & Survival has a particular focus on art that escaped to America. Loebl, who grew up in Nazi Germany and hid as a teenager in wartime Belgium, interweaves this history with stories of her and her family’s own survival, as well as their art.

“As a Holo­caust sur­vivor, Loebl’s writ­ing dis­plays a deep degree of sen­si­tiv­i­ty and lev­el of poignan­cy. Read­ers are swept along as the author shares what hap­pened, paint­ing by paint­ing, start­ing with the theft and then look­ing at a great many of the pieces that were recov­ered and restored to their right­ful owners. . . . The writ­ing is crisp through­out, and each seg­ment about a piece of art brings us deft­ly into the next one.” —Jewish Book Council

“Loebl has produced an in-depth art-historical examination of a dark time for European culture. Plunder and Survival represents a significant addition to our understanding of how and why the rapacious Nazis sought to erase art and artists they didn’t like.” —Art New England

Suzanne Loebl will be in conversation with Senior Education Programs Manager, Rachel Podber-Kennison.

Suzanne Loebl is the author of fourteen books. She was born into an art-collecting family in Germany and escaped the Nazis as a teenager by hiding in Belgium. Her other books include America’s Art Museums: A Traveler’s Guide to Great Collections Large and Small and a memoir on her experience during World War II, At the Mercy of Strangers: Growing Up on the Edge of the Holocaust. In 2012, Loebl received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors.

Rachel Podber-Kennison grew up in the Jewish community of Atlanta and is the granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors. She aims to make Holocaust education accessible to all learning styles and is passionate about providing students with the resources they need to navigate and combat antisemitism in their schools and communities. She completed her undergraduate degree in Film and Television at Boston University, and as a student, single-handedly sorted and organized the Hebrew section of Elie Wiesel's archival collection. She holds a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester, with a dissertation entitled "Heirlooms Held Hostage: The Fate of Nazi-Looted Art in Museum Collections". She has lectured on topics including museum ethics, Nazi-looted art, the experience of Jews in the Roman Empire, and intercultural relations in antiquity, including a live cooking demonstration on ancient Roman cooking. 

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