English: Though the village of Baltinava’s Jewish community never numbered higher than a few hundred the village was still home to Jewish mutual aid and cultural societies – as this book stamp demonstrates. In the years preceding the Second World War the Jews of Baltinava made up well over a third of the communities total population. The Nazis took Baltinava in July of 1941, and after initially executing a portion of the Jewish community, many of Baltinava’s remaining Jews were made to engage in forced labor. On August 11, 1941 the Nazis took the remaining Jews from Baltinava to the Baltnice forest where they were murdered.

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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