"Stolen Legacy" Reveals Shocking New Discoveries

WASHINGTON - Nov. 28, 2016 - PRLog -- In 1990 shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Dina Gold marched into a German government ministry at Krausenstrasse 17/18 and declared, "I've come to claim my family's building." And so began Gold's legal struggle as recounted in her book STOLEN LEGACY: Nazi Theft and The Quest for Justice at Krausenstrasse 17/18, Berlin, the first book about the successful claim of a building seized by the Nazis.

But the story wasn't over. After the hardcover edition of Stolen Legacy was published in August 2015, Professor Ernst-Ludwig von Thadden, President of Mannheim University in Germany, wrote to Gold about his Dr. Kurt-Hamann Foundation, named in honor of the man responsible for the Nazi seizure of the Wolff family's business headquarters in Berlin: "I am most indebted to you to bring this piece of history to the fore… Please keep going."

In this updated and expanded paperback edition of Stolen Legacy, Gold has delved deeper into archives across the world and made shocking new discoveries. The Victoria Insurance Company, which under Kurt Hamann had withdrawn the mortgage on the stately six-story building in 1937, was later part of a consortium insuring SS-owned slave labor workshops at Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Stutthof concentration camps. Gold uncovered even more about the long buried history of the Victoria's chairman, who had links to the top of the Nazi party. What she found has repercussions right up to today's Germany.

In a major victory, Gold persuaded the German government to put up a plaque in July 2016 acknowledging in both German and English the history of "The Wolff Building." Once the head office of one of Germany's most successful Jewish fashion firms, during World War II it had been used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn, Hitler's railways, which had transported millions of Jews to their deaths.

The story is STILL not over.

About the Author
Dina Gold is a former BBC investigative reporter and television producer. Now living in Washington, DC, she is a senior editor at Moment magazine, co-chair of the Washington Jewish Film Festival, and on the board of the Jewish Community Center.

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

Author: Dina Gold
Publisher: Ankerwycke (trade imprint of the American Bar Association)
Publication Date: November 28, 2016
Specs: Paperback, 328 pages, ISBN 978-1634254274 $17.95
Website: http://www.stolenlegacy.com

PRAISE FOR STOLEN LEGACY

"Sometimes life is stranger than fiction…an extraordinary story."
—The Guardian

"If you're interested in a good detective yarn lasting 150 years, Stolen Legacy won't disappoint."
—The Weekly Standard

"This former BBC journalist's passionate search for justice is a suspenseful confrontation with World War II history. A fascinating journey."
—Anne-Marie O'Connor, national bestselling author, The Lady in Gold

"Dina Gold's remarkable work gives hope that it is never too late. Her story is a testament to the human spirit."
—Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, Special Advisor to the Secretary of State on Holocaust Issues

"A compelling tale."
—The Times, Writers' Top Picks of 2015

"A meticulous and finely written account…with all the twists and turns one would expect from a fictional detective story – but it is all true."
—E. Randol Schoenberg, attorney and key character in the film Woman in Gold

"A granddaughter's grit, her investigative journalist skills, serendipity, the German's propensity for keeping records all combine to make a true historic adventure."
— The Jewish Press

"Gripping… the remarkable story of the dogged, six-year campaign [Gold] mounted to obtain restitution from the German government for the Nazis' appropriation of the magnificent, six-storey headquarters of her family's renowned pre-war fur business… The story behind Dina Gold's book has not ended."
—The Jewish Chronicle

"… riveting, humane and politically important."
—Standpoint

"Her property becomes in a way the reader's property and we follow with great interest and intensity her efforts not only to recover a material legacy but the entire history of her family."
—Serge Klarsfeld, lawyer and Nazi hunter

"Dina Gold tells the fascinating story of the uphill attempts of one family — her own — to regain the property that had been stolen from them by the Nazis. It is an amazing story."
—Walter Laqueur, historian, political commentator and author

"The Holocaust was an immense act of murder. But it was also an immense act of theft. The stolen property was seized and passed on, first by the Nazis and then by governments that followed. This is the story of a single such property."
—Walter Reich, Yitzhak Rabin Chair, George Washington University and former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

"Gold's description of the veneer of legality that the Nazis used is important."
—LA Review of Books