Stolen Legacy: Nazi Theft and the Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin

Stolen Legacy is a non-fiction historical narrative centered on a Jewish family’s legal battle to reclaim ownership of a building stolen from them by the Nazis in the 1930s. The building at Krausenstrasse 17/18 in Berlin was seized by a German businessman with direct ties to the very top of the Nazi Party hierarchy and German Railways—the state-owned organization that transported millions of Jews across Europe to the death camps. He was the head of the Victoria Insurance Company, then and now one of Germany’s top insurance companies which, according to the book, played a role in insuring the Auschwitz death camp during World War Two.

The book, written by the daughter of one of the original owners of the building, details the history of the Wolff family’s ownership of the building, its confiscation by the Nazis, and the family’s legal fight to reclaim it. There has been no previous written account of a successful claim of a property seized by the Nazis in Germany. The U.S. Special Adviser on Holocaust Issues, Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, has written the book’s foreword.