[3] Bencowitz told Lt. Leslie I. Poste, another Monuments man, I would walk into the loose document room to take a look at the things there and found it impossible to tear myself away from the fascinating piles of letters, folders, and little personal bundles.
[4]"No sooner had Seymour Pomrenze started to make a dent in the Offenbach inventory than newly discovered materials poured into the depot; the paper tide continued through 1947 and 1948.
As director of the Offenbach Collecting Point from May to November 1946, Bencowitz developed an innovative system of identification and sorting in order to aid the restitution of artworks and cultural artifacts.
This system proved extremely valuable as it provided sorters who were not familiar with many of the eastern European languages an easy way to identify items.
The charge of sorting through the thousands of documents and cultural artifacts left behind after the mass genocide of European Jews proved to be emotionally taxing as well as technically difficult.
In its cabinets bolted with iron bars there were letters, pictures, Torah scrolls, embroidered ark curtains, brass and silver menorahs, Passover plates, and precious books and manuscripts.
For Captain Isaac Bencowitz, a Rockefeller Institute chemistry professor, and director of the Central Collecting Point, and for his staff, the daily work of sorting, cataloging, and finding the owners of these objects was a poignant mission.
Between March 1946 and April 1949 the Offenbach Archival Depot succeeded in returning to survivors, descendants and museums over three million looted items.
[7]Bencowitz left Europe on leave in the fall of 1946 and was succeeded as director of the Offenbach Collecting Point by Monuments officer Theodore Heinrich.
Written on an archival photograph of Bencowitz taken upon his departure is the following statement: "During his tour of duty, in the wake of the 3rd army he buried thousands of dead horses, provided food, shelter, clothes, etc.