Seymour Nussenbaum

PVT in 603rd Engineer Camouflage Bn : HQ & Service Co

Military occupational specialty: 144 (painter, general)

ASN#32814173

Born 1923 in NY

Artist

County of residence at enlistment: Kings County, NY

Other residence(s): Brooklyn, NY (Banhof Flag); Old Bridge, NJ; Monroe Township, NJ

United States Army, European Theatre of Operations

College education before the war: Pratt 2 years

College education after the war: Pratt

Notes: "Nuss"

Source: Travel Orders, 23d HQ, 29 August 1945; Unit Shipment 10143-B, 23d HQ, from le Havre 23 June 1945; HQ & Service Company List of Men and Jobs; militaryyearbookproject.org/references/old-mos-codes/wwii-era/army...photo from Seymour Nussenbaum Collection, GALP Archive

Seymour Nussenbaum was born on May 22, 1923, in New York City. Both of his parents were born in Romania, and he was the oldest of four children.

After he graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in 1939, his family moved from the Bronx to Brooklyn and he attended night classes at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts and at the Pratt Institute.

Seymour registered for the draft in December, 1942 and, knowing that he would be going into the service, took a course in camouflage offered by the Army at Pratt. He enlisted on February 23, 1943.

During the war, as a member of the Ghost Army, he was part of the team that made counterfeit patches. He wrote home regularly, sending sketches and mementos, and when he was discharged, in November, 1945, he went to work creating two detailed scrapbooks of his sketches and memorabilia. He says that he had some downtime while waiting for the spring 1946 semester at Pratt to begin, and that seemed a perfect time to complete that project.

And he had a ready answer when people asked him what he did during the war: "When they asked me what I did, I said I blew up tanks—which wasn't a lie!"

Seymour graduated from Pratt in 1948 with a degree in illustration, and the following year married his long-time girlfriend, Vera Ribet.

Vera had an interesting story in her own right—she grew up in Leipzig, Germany, and was sent away on the first Kindertransport three weeks after Kristallnacht, arriving in England at the age of 12 in 1938. She spent the next nine years with the family that took her in, coming to the US with an uncle in 1947.

Seymour found work as a package designer with Dolin Packaging in Irvington, NJ, working on both the structural and graphic elements of the packaging; he retired in 1990. He also worked as a freelance illustrator and package designer until 1997.

He and Vera raised their daughters, Julie and Francie, in Old Bridge, NJ, where he was a founding member of Congregation Beth Ohr. Both he and Vera were active in the congregation, and they remained in Old Bridge for over 40 years. They then relocated to Monroe Township, NJ.

His passion was collecting stamps and postage, with a philatelic specialty in Judaica items. He also designed many postmarks and first day cover cachets and won several awards. For example, in 1963, he was one of 25 winners of the New Jersey Tercentenary Stamp Design Contest. He is an inductee to the Salmagundi Club in New York.

Vera died in 2015 at the age of 90. Seymour continued to live in Monroe Township, and remained active in Ghost Army activities. He was one of three Ghost Army veterans to attend the events surrounding the opening of the Ghost Army Exhibit at the World War Two Museum in New Orleans in March of 2020, and he served on the advisory board of the Ghost Army Legacy Project (GALP).

He donated his two wartime scrapbooks to GALP in 2013, and after careful professional conservation, and digitization of the contents, those albums are now housed at the World War Two Museum.

Seymour was one of three veterans to attend the Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony in Washington, DC on March 21, 2024. He died on October 5, 2024 at the age of 101.