“The Nazi Confiscation of Wanda Landowska’s Musical Collection and Its Aftermath,” Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry, Vol. 32, The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization in association with Liverpool University Press, 2020

When the Germans invaded France in May 1940, Wanda Landowska was at the height of her career. She was an internationally renowned harpsichord and piano soloist and an accomplished scholar, writer, teacher, and composer. She had amassed an extensive music library, including manuscripts, rare printed music, and books, and an impressive antique musical instrument collection, which was confiscated soon after the Nazi occupation of Paris and Landowska’s flight from her home and music school at 88 rue de Pontoise, Saint-Leu-la-Forêt. Only a portion of Landowska’s musical collection was discovered in Germany by the U.S. Army after the war; this essay documents these returns. The whereabouts of still-missing musical objects from her collection remain a question today.