Sunday, February 16, 2014

Appraising The Monuments Men Book

By Krystal Branch


The monuments men book is a story by Robert Edsel about a group determined to rescue as much fine art as possible from capture or destruction during the way with Hitler. The group also includes women and the aim was to save cultural treasures that were about to be destroyed by Nazi fanatics. They had to work fast because there were racing against time.

There were no maps to indicate where the treasures would be found. Each person developed an own map from records recovered from bombed museums and cathedrals, secret notes and journals that were written by Rosa Valland. Rosa was an employee of the French museum who made a personal commitment to track the plunder in secret. She followed the hints from the rail yards to anything useful source. One of them was a given by a dentist during root canal.

Salvaging the artifacts in the prevailing conditions required a lot of sacrifice. The middle aged team abandoned their families for the sake of cultural treasure. The pieces of art were by such fellows as Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Van Eycks and other European painters. The art produced by these fellows was phenomenal.

The mission to rescue the art involved a lot of risk including exposing their lives to danger. Everything was at stake as long as they could save artifacts from pillage or destruction during war. Such loss would have been detrimental for the culture and art of that generation. Understanding such a delicate matter and choosing to do something about it was phenomenal. The team was made up of educators, curators, art scholars, archivists, architects and museum directors.

The rescue gained the nod and apparent support of General Eisenhower and President Roosevelt. The support was virtual because it did not include authority to direct combat away from areas of interest, gasoline, typewriters and necessary vehicles, among other requirements. While they had set to protect the art centers from destruction, they could not stop their destruction and therefore had to change tact and begin to safeguard them from destruction.

The author offers a lay mans creation of the characters of these individuals. This is necessary considering the difficulty they are facing. It is a journey into their young lives, their passions and goals and how each finds himself in the mission. The extent of sacrifice is huge since some of them give-up their lives for the course.

It is worth noting that Hitler wanted to construct the largest museum in the world by collecting the best works during war. Immediately he invaded Poland, he began an attack on churches, private art collections and museums. This is how he got the finest art and hid it in remote castles and secret mines waiting for the war to end. He wanted to show that Aryan artists were superior to Jewish artists.

The monuments men book captures a different dimension of the Second World War different from the combat and destruction that is common in history. It is a story of personal sacrifice and determination for nationhood. It has since been made into a movie that was released in December 2013.




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