Where is the Amber Room (1 cent)

I ran through Hector Feliciano's "The Lost Museum", a book written about ten years ago about art stolen by the Nazis. Feliciano concentrates on five large French Jewish collections, some of which were confiscated by the Nazis, some hidden throughout the war, and some hidden until found. He talks about the Nazi collectors, such as Hitler and Goering, the storage of art work in varous places including the Jeu de Paume, about the art work brokered in Switzerland and in Paris during the Nazi years. He talks about the recovery of works after the war, about the works that have never been recovered, and about works that have been located and not returned. He talks a little about art work that was removed by the Russians into the USSR.

The book is interesting because it tells this story in a very straightforward way.

But, if you recall, I had recently read a book about the Amber Room, stolen from Pushkin (Tsarkoe Selo) by the Germans.

In that book, the Amber Room was clearly the most important piece stolen by the Germans during the war. In The Lost Museum (admittedly about private collections, not Soviet property), it does not even get a mention.

But what is consistent is the extraordinary attention that went to both the collection and the preservation of works of art by the Nazis, and how this effort was directed at the highest level, and involved large numbers of people, and great expenses, even as the war was raging. When you think about it, it is hard to comprehend, isn't it? All of this preservation in the midst of destruction?