Send us a textCover photo of Menachem Kaiser by Beowulf Sheehan.To learn more, please visit the website for Menacham Kaiser and Plunder.Show Notes:2:00 genesis of Plunder: A Memoir of family property and Nazi treasure4:00 the memoir by Abraham Kajser6:45 Kajser’s experience as a forced laborer during WWII in underground camp structures in Poland that were given the code name Project Riese 7:30 Polish version and Hebrew version of Kajser’s memoir8:45 political decisions in what stories are given attention10:30 the writer’s mandate to create work that’s honest11:20 he went on a Fulbright to Lithuania11:50 his unexpected research on the Vilna Ghetto12:30 lessons missed in Holocaust education13:00 his revelation of how morally and historically complicated and interesting the Holocaust is14:00 Jews’ self-governance in ghettos included trials and hangings15:00 How the ‘politics memory’ differs in countries like Lithuania and Poland17:00 The arc of his thoughts on the moral and ethical questions raised by his inheritance claim for his grandfather’s building21:00 status of his inheritance claim for his grandfather’s building22:00 move by mayor of Sosnowiec to claim his grandfather’s building25:30 Nationalist shift in Poland, resulting in failed/dismissed property claims27:00 response to Plunder in Poland28:30 KARTA publisher of Plunder in Poland 30:00 the challenges he dealt with in researching the book 31:50 research into forced displacement of Germans after WWII34:30 myth-soaked Silesia became a character in the book36:30 archive from Vilnius, Lithuania38:00 David Fishman’s The Book Smugglers40:00 value of archives in digitized form versus physical form41:00 Vilnius archive re-surfaced in the late 1980s/early 1990s 43:00 arts programs in the Vilna ghetto during WWII43:30 Artist Samuel Bak44:00 Poet Abraham Sutzkever44:15 Protest songs by poet, musician, writer and activist Szmerke Kaczerginski44:40 civil war rumblings in Vilna ghetto46:50 Jacob Gens, head of the Vilna ghetto government47:45 death of Itzik Wittenberg, Hero of the Vilna Ghetto / leader of the Resistance49:30 anti-Semitism in Poland50:30 his thoughts on how the justice system is designed to frustrate efforts 52:15 his thoughts on how his legacy is being shaped as a writer57:00 his current project related to an ongoing story in Montreal that involves allegations of hiding 4B in Nazi gold.Please share your comments and/or questions at [email protected] by Toulme.To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at [email protected]. Thanks so much for listening!© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]

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