A rich Armenian Library, later on named the Nubar Library, was founded in Paris in 1928, under the responsibility of the former journalist and author Aram Andonian. Its existence was jeopardized in 1941, when the German authorities decided to requisition the Nubar Library, something they also did with the Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech and Jewish libraries in occupied Paris. While in most cases historians can only study these spoliations through the eyes of the perpetrators, the looting of this Armenian institution is narrated day by day in Aram Andonian’s unknown diary. Showing the materiality of the spoliation in its smallest details, Andonian’s account highlights the agency of Armenian individuals and organisations confronted with the spoliation, between resistance and collaboration. The numerous interpolations visible in the text raise questions about the processes of its writing in 1941 and apparently its rewriting after the end of the war, when the restitution of stolen books was at stake. A controversy in the Armenian press opposed Andonian to Ardashes Apeghian, an Armenian scholar sent from Berlin whom he accused of having supported the Nazis and benefited from the spoliation. Beyond the history of the looting of the Library, Aram Andonian’s pseudo-diary is revealing of his relationship with writing and witnessing, especially in the post-1945 context.

Bio: Boris Adjemian is a historian and the director of the AGBU Nubar Library, Paris. He defended his PhD in 2011 at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS, France) and Università degli Studi di Napoli (Italy). He is the co-founder and co-editor of the academic journal Études arméniennes contemporaines and an editorial board member of 20 & 21: Revue d’histoire. He is also an affiliated researcher at the Centre de recherches historiques (CRH - EHESS) and the Institut Convergences Migrations (ICM). His research and publications are related to the Armenian genocide, the history and memories of Armenian immigration and the diaspora. He has recently defended his habilitation à diriger des recherches (HDR) at École normale supérieure (ENS, Paris) on the following topic: Archives, Exile and Politics: Aram Andonian and the Armenian Library of Paris (1927-1951).