National and University Library of Iceland
IS – Íslenska

Book donation on the day of remembrance for the victims

Professor Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson has given Þjóðarbókhlaða, the library building at Arngrímsgata 3, a donation of books from RNH, the Icelandic Research Centre for Innovation and Economic Growth, on the occasion of the European Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Totalitarian Regimes, Nazism and Communism, 23 August 2014. That day marked exactly 75 years since Hitler and Stalin divided Central and Eastern Europe between them with the non-aggression pact signed in Moscow. The European Parliament has made the day a special annual day of remembrance. The books include the report of the Estonian commission of inquiry into the crimes of the communists and Nazis in Estonia, a two-volume work by Professor Bent Jensen on the history of the Cold War in Denmark, and biographies of men who played a part in the history of the Icelandic communist movement, for example Willi Münzenberg, Otto Katz and Arne Munch-Petersen, all of whom were executed by their own comrades. The donation is connected with a joint project of RNH and AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, on “Europe of the Victims”.