After my talks at the University of Kasimir the Great in Poland, I received a gift from Professora Ilona Błaszczyk: a book on Seneca on education. Professora Błaszczyk is a scholar of classical thought who has translated Seneca’s work into Polish.
A striking feature of the book, though, appears on the title page: a Third Reich stamp. (Click to enlarge the images.)
So, a book about a Roman philosopher book was published in in Paris 1914, on the eve of World War I; it apparently came into the possession of a Third Reich official or institution during the 1930s and World War II, probably in Germany; it eventually came to the professora in Poland; and now, 103 years after publication, it comes to me and the USA.
If anyone can read better than I what the stamp’s lettering says, please let me know.
Update:
Fernando Menéndez sent this useful information: “The stamp says: Archäologisches Museum des Deutschen Reiches (or Archaeological Museum of the German Reich.)
“I can’t make out the letters in the inner circle, but it may be a reference to an ancient Greek collection.
“There was a Nazi-oriented archaeological outfit called the Ahnenerbe, set up by Heinrich Himmler, to dig up antiquities that showed the genesis of “Aryan” culture. That was mostly ideological hokum, but this doesn’t seem to be part of that outfit. Of course, after 1933, every state institution and its symbols had the swastika on it, so I’m assuming this was from a “legit” collection.”