In a copy of Anshe Shem of S. Buber, I came across a stamp stating in Hebrew:
“From the library of Yosef Eichler, Pressburg. This book, if not in the procession of its owner, it shall be a mitzvah to return it, as it was stolen or lost during the calamities of the year 5742 (1941-42).”
Eichler, seeing the approaching devastation, seems to have stamped his books with this message in the hopes of being able to reclaim them in better days.
When Slovakia became an independent state in 1939, it immediately started implementing discriminatory practices against the Jewish population, evicting the Jews of Pressburg/Bratislava – Eichler’s home – and sending them to the small towns in the country.
By 1942, many of the Jews had been deported to the death camps in Poland. During the war, the city was home to the Bratislava Working Group, which was devoted to rescuing Jews. It was led by Rabbi Mochael Dov Weissmandl and Gisi Fleischmann and tried valiantly to make people aware of the atrocities being committed by the Nazis and bribing officials to allow people to escape.
Ultimately, though, the group’s efforts largely came to naught and most Slovakian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.
