Maursupial

Like all of Germany’s Universities, Humboldt University fell into the hands of the Nazi part after its rise to power and on May 10, 1933, 20,000 copies of books from the school’s library written by opponents of the regime were burned in its courtyard. A monument, a glass panel inset in the cobblestone that looks into a white room with enough white bookshelves to hold 20,000 books, now stands across the street with a plaque that reads a chillingly predictive 1820 quote by German poet Heinrich Heine: “That was only a prelude; where they burn books, they ultimately burn people.” In memorial and as an attempted reparation, the Humboldt now hosts a book fair every day where one can purchase copies of the books that were lost in 1993. Being the political science crony that I am, I purchased a copy of Das Kapital in German (fitting because Marx attended and taught at Humboldt before his works were burned in that event). 

Books may be little more than tinder at times, but they’re vessels for ideas, which are indestructible.