Bible stolen in 1938 repatriated to Vienna

Wednesday, November 25, 2009 | by

A Bible that vanished from a Vienna library in November 1938 on the eve of Kristallnacht is being returned to Austria 71 years after its disappearance.

The two-volume, black leather, atlas-sized Bible, printed 493 years ago by Daniel Bomberg in Venice, surfaced last winter at a New York auction house, where federal authorities confiscated it. Kestenbaum & Company, the auctioneer who advertised the Bible, estimated its value to be $20,000 to $30,000.

The Bible’s owner, whose name will not be released, “accepted their moral responsibility to have it returned, no matter what financial loss was involved,” Jackie Insel, a Kestenbaum manager, told the New York Times in an e-mail.

— jta