New from Bloomsbury Press:
PLUNDER & SURVIVAL
A book from award-winning author Suzanne Loebl on how World War II changed the art world forever.
In Plunder & Survival: Stories of Theft, Loss, Recovery and Migration of Nazi-Uprooted Art, Suzanne Loebl tells the story of the Nazi looting of art in World War II Europe by looking at the human side: the people who lost the art, those who stole and monetized it for Hitler, and those who helped save it. Plunder & Survival has a particular focus on art that escaped to America. Loebl, who grew up in Nazi Germany and hid as a teenager in wartime Belgium, interweaves this history with stories of her and her family’s own survival, as well as their art. Plunder & Survival is written by the author of the acclaimed America’s Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy and includes biographies and photographs of approximately 100 works of looted art that can be seen in museums throughout the United States.
Suzanne Loebl is the author of fourteen books, most recently America’s Medicis: The Rockefellers and Their Astonishing Cultural Legacy. Her next book, Plunder & Survival, on the migration of Nazi looted art to America, will be published by Bloomsbury Press in October 2025. In 2012, Loebl received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. She splits her time between New York and Maine.
About Suzanne Loebl
“Loebl has produced an in-depth art-historical examination of a dark time for European culture. Plunder and Survival represents a significant addition to our understanding of how and why the rapacious Nazis sought to erase art and artists they didn’t like.”
—Art New England
“As a Holocaust survivor, Loebl’s writing displays a deep degree of sensitivity and level of poignancy. Readers are swept along as the author shares what happened, painting by painting, starting with the theft and then looking at a great many of the pieces that were recovered and restored to their rightful owners. . . . The writing is crisp throughout, and each segment about a piece of art brings us deftly into the next one.”
—Jewish Book Council
“A work that stands out from the immense and ever-growing shelf of World War II literature. . . . A rich portrait of the fate of art—and artists—in the shadow of Hitler.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A unique and extraordinary contribution to the growing library of Holocaust related histories and accounts . . . An informative, engaging, and simply fascinating read from start to finish.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Suzanne Loebl weaves her own fascinating and unique family history into a narrative that is as compelling as it is detailed. Plunder & Survival is a must-read and will undoubtedly change the way we look at the art looted by the Nazi regime.”
—June Beallor, Founding Executive Director, USC Shoah Foundation Oscar®, Emmy®, and Peabody Award-winning Filmmaker