In November 1939 he was arrested and imprisoned in the KZ Sachsenhausen during the Sonderaktion Krakau . Released in the autumn of 1940 he got back to the library as a simple librarian , and struggled to save and secure the collections during the war . In the midst of 1944 he was fired from Library , because some valuable manuscripts - previously destined to be sent to Nazi Germany - had disappeared . After the war he was simultaneously the director of the Jagiellonian Library and the University of Poznan Library , till 1947 . In 1951 he became an ordinary professor of Warsaw University , and the head of the Bibliology Chair . He was one of the organizers of the future Institute for the History of Science , Polish Academy of Sciences . In 1954-1966 he conducted its Section of the History of Mathematical , Physico-Chemical and Geological-Geographical Sciences in the Department of the History of Science and Technology of the Polish Academy of Sciences , as well as was the president of its Academic Counsel
Sonderaktion Krakau
Sonderaktion Krakau
Aleksander Birkenmajer