Robert M. Edsel

Robert M. Edsel’s fascination with the Monuments Men began while he was living in Florence, Italy, in the late 1990s. Standing on the Ponte Vecchio, he wondered how so many of Europe’s great monuments and works of art could have survived the destruction of World War II. Since then, he has conducted major scholarly research, acquired previously unseen original documents, and devoted his life to learning about the small group of Western Allied soldiers known as the “Monuments Men.” Their unprecedented mission was to rescue and preserve Europe’s greatest works of art from the Nazi looting machine.

Mr. Edsel is the founder of The Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art, which received the National Humanities Medal in 2007, and coproducer of The Rape of Europa, the Emmy nominated documentary about the Nazi looting of Europe’s cultural treasures during World War II. He is also the author of Rescuing Da Vinci, a photographic survey of the Nazis’ looting, and the efforts of the Monuments Men. Mr. Edsel lives in Dallas, Texas.

Bret Witter

Bret Witter cowrote the bestselling Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat who Touched the World. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife and two children.