Leuven: The Library of the Catholic University of Leuven

An image of the library of Leuven after it was burned down

The Library of Leuven after it was burnt down during the Second World War; public domain.

What happened?

Leuven had suffered a tragic library fire during First World War. In late August 1914, German troops had set fire to the fifteenth-century library of Leuven (or Louvain), destroying countless medieval manuscripts.1 After the war, Germany and other nations had transferred a large number of medieval manuscripts to Belgium to help rebuild their damaged collections. But during the early stages of the Second World War, tragedy struck again. In May 1940, the Library of the Catholic University of Leuven was burnt down a second time.

What was lost?

In this tragedy, over 800 manuscripts (medieval and modern) were lost.2 More information about these losses, and an example of these losses, is available here.

  1. Printed in the Library Association, “The Destruction of Louvain's Library," Library Journal 39, no. 10 (1914), p. 763, quoted at p. 763.
    2.
  2. Hans Van der Hoeven, Lost Memory: Libraries and Archives Destroyed in the Twentieth Century (Paris: UNESCO, 1996), p. 13.