HN Reader

My great grandfather was the vice rector of the university at the time, as an historian he took the initiative to covertly collect evidence of all the nazi crimes, evidence which was used in the nuremberg trials.

But more interestingly, there was a nationalist movement in Belgium at the the time, and a debate on which language to use at the university. The international language (french) or the local language (flemish). He was of the opinion that both had their place, which put him in opposition to the nationalists. Since he was one of the founders of the flemish literature movement, and the prime expert on flemish history he was hard to attack directly by the nationalists. So they denounced him to the gestapo, hoping they would get rid of him while keeping their hands clean. Fortunately for me it didn’t work, as the nazis were also reliant on his academic work for their pan-germanic narrative and refused to attack him directly as well.

Nowadays we see as well western nationalist movements with ambivalent support for murderous regimes such as Russia, and I think this support comes in no small part from the idea that those regimes can be used to do the dirty work that they are too cowardly to do themselves

The correct name of this city is Leuven.

It’s really jarring reading about a place I know and having it’s name inexplicably changed to French. Why?

The situation in 2024 is much more confusing. Because it seems to me that the political side that styles itself to be against the far-right, is also very much in favour of curtailing free speech and reigning in internet platforms where people share news and political opinions. So who is burning the books? Everyone? I'm so confused.

Now we need an article about KULouvian splitting with UCLouvain and building a new town and university from scratch in less than 3 years, a true engineering marvel.

Related that library was split into 2 because of this: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-was-the-leuven-li...

Leuven. It's a Dutch speaking town. The university is KU Leuven. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KU_Leuven

On the flipside. American universities supported a rebuild of the library and today still it is one of the most magnificent libraries you will see anywhere in the world.

> Louvain (“Leuven”)

The correct name of the city is Leuven: it is a Flemish city, not a Wallonian one. Using French names for Flemish cities is just wrong.

My great grandparents had a friend die in this fire.

Then they and their kids had to go through it again 26 years later.

The library was rebuilt with American aid. If you walk around the building today you will see all the plaques of contributing institutions embedded in the walls.

In August of 1914, during World War I, Leuven was looted by German troops. In the night of the 25th to 26th of August, they set fire to a large part of the city, effectively destroying about half of it. The Germans set fire to the 14th century University Hall and its library wing. The University library burned, and with it about 300,000 books, about 1000 incunabula and a huge collection of manuscripts, including the University’s founding bull from 1425.

The Germans had aimed to punish Leuven after alleging the presence of snipers in the city. They claimed that the sacking of Leuven was a fair reprisal. Their ‘punisment’ of Leuven destroyed more than 1000 buildings and cost more than 200 lives.

When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, soon after the restoration of Leuven’s new library, Belgium found itself neutral once again.

After the retreat of the British and with German forces entering the city, on the 17th of May 1940 the new University library was set aflame after an artillery barrage. Molten glass from the above floors flowed into the cellars, past the steel doors, and destroyed the collections. The entire building was gutted. Not even twelve years after its opening, the new University library was reduced to rubble and its collections were ravaged once more. The occupying forces accused the British of having set the library ablaze on purpose to allow them to later blame the Germans. No access to the ruin or objective investigations were allowed. Joseph Goebbels, German propaganda minister, paid the ruined library a visit to push the German version of events. At the Nuremberg tribunal it was found that the library burned after German artillery had struck it. Only 21,000 of the original 900,000 pieces in the library collection were left. Hundreds of manuscripts (including some that had survived the 1914 fire) and everything from before 1501 was destroyed.

https://ghum.kuleuven.be/ggs/research/america-europefund/aef...

“Where they burn books, they will also burn people” — Heinrich Heine

To be precise (because I was confused initially): the building being shown in pictures is the current “main hall” of KU Leuven in Naamsestraat (second picture), nearby Oudemarkt (first picture), and not the university library in Ladeuzeplein.

Very interesting to note that Oxford wasn't extensively bombed in ww2 despite being a manufacturing hub. I wonder what role this incident had in that choice.

Final sentence:

To this day, the burning of the library in Louvain remains a battle line, which we should be weary [sic] to ever cross again, for as Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) so eloquently once stated, “where they burn books, they will also burn people”.