Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights:#1 The Monuments Men were a group of men and women from thirteen nations, who volunteered for service in the newly created Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section. They were tasked with saving as much of the culture of Europe as they could during combat.#2 The city of Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, was founded in 1715 by the Margrave Karl Wilhelm von Baden-Durlach. It was a rare luxury for Jews to be allowed to settle where they pleased, and in 1718, a Jewish congregation was established there.#3 The Ettlingers were not strictly observant Jews, but they still went to the Kronenstrasse Synagogue. The synagogue was a large, ornate hundred-year-old building. The men wore pressed black suits and black top hats, and the women sat in the upper balconies.#4 In March 1938, the Nazis annexed Austria. The public adulation that followed cemented Hitler’s control of power and reinforced his ideology of Deutschland über alles, or Germany above all. In July, the Ettlingers moved up the date of their son’s bar mitzvah ceremony, and their passage out of Germany another three weeks.