Two books from the estate of Lucy Büchenbacher restituted

Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel has returned two books to the heir of author Lucy Büchenbacher, who was persecuted on antisemitic grounds.

Lucy Büchenbacher (née Mailaender, 1886–1978) published more than twenty children’s books and also poetry under the pseudonym Lucy Malden. Like her entire family, she was subjected to antisemitic persecution under the Nazi regime. Faced with mounting persecution, she resolved to emigrate in 1939, and in June of that year she had her household effects shipped by a removals company from Nuremberg to the port of Hamburg. The company informed her in September that part of her property had been “lost” en route. In fact the Gestapo had confiscated her belongings in Hamburg and auctioned them off, the proceeds being paid into Gestapo accounts. Lucy Büchenbacher succeeded in emigrating to Bolivia in December 1939. From there she travelled on with her daughter to the United States, arriving in November 1945. They changed their family name to Baker.

The restitution file on Lucy Baker indicates clearly that her household effects included 24 picture books published between 1920 and 1932, as well as around 200 books dating from 1900 to 1932. It can be assumed that the two volumes identified at HAB were among them, namely Unterhaltungen über literarische Gegenstände and Das gerettete Venedig. The two volumes were restituted to Büchenbacher’s heir in early 2025.

Their provenance was reconstructed through the project „NS-Raubgut unter den Zugängen der Herzog August Bibliothek 1933–1969“, funded by the German Lost Art Foundation.

For more information about Lucy Büchenbacher’s story, see the latest HAB podcast episode: #20 NS-Raubgut: Die Geschichte Lucy Büchenbachers – HAB