File:Society for the Guarding of the Health of the Jewish Population (24649395836).jpg

English: At the beginning of World War I, as many Jewish (as well as non-Jewish) refugees poured away from the Western boundaries of the Russian Empire where fighting with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires was taking place, aid organizations in places further away from the border areas began to be formed to address the needs of this influx of people. Many of the Jewish refugees holding Russian citizenship were also abroad within German or Austrian territories at the start of the war and rushed to get back to Russia once the war broke out. One such organization was the Society for the guarding of the health of the Jewish population. It was formed in September 1914 and set up aid centers in areas where refugees were concentrated and provided medical attention as well as food. To accomplish this they allocated funds from their own coffers and took donations. They seem to have been most active in St. Petersburg and the Vilna Governorate.

This book stamp is from a book looted by the Nazis and sorted by Colonel Seymour Pomrenze, one of “the Monuments Men,” at the Offenbach Archival Depot.
There are two scrapbooks of archival markings from the books sorted at the Offenbach Depot in the Seymour Pomrenze Collection held by the American Jewish Historical Society (Call number P-933) There is a finding aid for the collection http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1463157 The digitized scrapbooks are available http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1666403 and http://digital.cjh.org/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=1665570.
For more information on this project check the Center’s blog: http://16thstreet.tumblr.com/tagged/Offenbach-Depot
Dr. Mitch Fraas, Acting Director of the Digital Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries' Special Collections Center is working on a similar project for the German book stamps based on NARA microfilm of the volumes the American Jewish Historical Society currently holds. See http://viewshare.org/views/mfraas/offenbach-bookplates/
The Center for Jewish History would like to acknowledge the following: The American Jewish Historical Society, who graciously allowed the use of their archival materials and digital content; Mitch Fraas, Acting Director of the Digital Humanities Forum at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries' Special Collections Center, for his data and technical assistance in this project; David Rosenberg, Senior Manager for Communications, and Melanie Meyers, Senior Reference Services Librarian for Special Collections, for managing and creating the digital map; as well as Reference Services Librarian Zachary Loeb and Reference Services Assistant Ilya Slavutskiy for their work on translating and mapping.

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