The 1944 volume, which contains the bookplate used by Hitler in his personal collection, is believed to have been kept at the Berghof, his summer residence, before being taken by Allied soldiers who occupied the complex after Germany’s defeat.
Michael Kent, a curator at the LAC, told The Guardian that the book “demonstrates that the Holocaust wasn’t a European event — it was an event that didn’t have the opportunity to spread out of Europe.
“It reminds us that conflicts and human tragedies that seemed far away could find their way to North America.”
Rebecca Margolis, president of the Canadian Association for Canadian Jewish Studies, described how “this invaluable report offers a documented confirmation of the fears felt so acutely and expressed by so many Canadian Jews during the Second World War: that the Nazis would land on our shores and with them, the annihilation of Jewish life here.
“While these fears may seem unfounded given the geographic distance of Nazi Europe to Canada, this handbook offering detailed statistics of Jewish populations across North America underlines their nightmarish potential.”
