Station: [360] The Banned Books

Like all Jewish publishers restrictions were also placed on Schocken Verlag from 1935 onwards. Jewish publishing companies were only allowed to release works by Jewish writers, under the slogan „from Jews, for Jews.“ The ghettoization of the Jews became the order of the day and this sometimes proved advantageous for the publishing companies because the Nazis gave their publications so little attention that they had a certain amount of freedom.  

A good example of this was the publication of the Jewish author, Franz Kafka, whose works were listed in the Nazi’s index and were either burnt, or banned from being published. Schocken Verlag overrode this and the Nazis only became aware of it when a review by Klaus Mann appeared in the exile magazine, „The Collection,“ in July 1935. The result was that the last two volumes of the Kafka Collected Works were released in Prague.