Colonel Seymour J. Pomrenze, records manager for UJA-Federation of New York

In the late 1970s, before UJA in New York City merged with the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies in New York (FJP),  Colonel Seymour J. Pomrenze retired from the army and began work as a consultant for various organizations, including FJP.

The American Jewish Historical Society recently received the papers of Colonel Pomrenze; the finding aid to that collection has been posted online and can be found here:

http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1463157

The Colonel, as he was called within the various Jewish organizations where he left his mark as a records manager, shows up all through the archives boxes we have received so far.  I’m quite sure it is because of the Colonel’s work through the 1980s at FJP and later at UJA-Federation of New York that so much of Federation’s earliest records have survived.

There is one box within the UJA-Federation collection that is the subject of this blog, which contains primarily his records management files and some biographical materials from the early 1990s.

As the finding aid to the Pomrenze collection makes clear, however, his most important contribution to the field of records management and archives was his work at the end of WWII in Offenbach, Germany to return looted books and religious items to their owners.  More information can be found in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC:

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/oad/

Colonel Pomrenze, center, at Offenbach