In its form letter to Harvard, the group advertised itself as the "trustee and distributing agent of a considerable stock of books of Jewish content, which are under the control of the American authorities in Germany."

The process to acquire books was complicated. Libraries had to fill out detailed applications specifying--in triplicate--the size of their facilities, whether or not they owned a card catalog system, the number of books in their collections, their budget and their interest in Hebrew, Yiddish and German books.

Jewish Cultural Reconstruction sent Harvard librarians a 120-page typewritten list of thousands of books and librarians responded by checking off the books they wanted in red pencil.

By July 17, 1950, Harvard library officials had signed off on the conditions for acquiring the books. They could not sell the volumes. Shipping would cost 30 cents a volume. And, if the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction found any of the books' owners, the library would have to give them up.

Each volume would also have to be marked with a bookplate identifying the book as a gift of the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction.

The bookplate would ensure, according a letter from Arendt, that the "present and future readers may be reminded of those who once cherished them before they became victims of the great Jewish catastrophe."

The bookplates, she wrote, would allow future scholars to "retrace the history and the whereabouts of the great cultural treasures of European Jewry."

By July 1951, the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction ended its distribution efforts. The last shipment of books arrived at Harvard in mid-August. The next year, the Jewish Cultural Reconstruction was disbanded.