Boell was not in Germany to fight or carry a weapon, he was a Monuments Man. The little-known U.S. Army group called the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section, or MFAA, is now getting the Hollywood treatment in a film starring George Clooney and Matt Damon. "The Monuments Men" opens Friday.

Originally a group of 30 men who were drafted from the ranks of art historians, librarians, archivists and museum directors, the Monuments Men grew to more than 300 men and women who were sent to Europe to search for, restore and repatriate art looted by the Nazis, as well as preserve documents, art and architectural treasures.

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"We're so used to thinking about people serving in combat but we sort of forget war has other components, that there were all sorts of things going on in addition to combat," said David Null, director of UW-Madison's Archives. "There's been a lot of interest about repatriation of art stolen from Jewish families. So it's interesting to acknowledge that (the Monuments Men) had an important role."

Before World War II, Boell, a Nebraska native, had been state director of the national historical records survey, a WPA project in Wisconsin. He spent much of the war at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., as the assistant director of the War Records Office, handling the preservation of highly classified State Department records. In 1945 he became a Monuments Man, serving as an archives officer in Germany and participating in the Nuremberg Trials.