By Dorian de Wind
The Moderate Voice
AUSTIN, Texas — It is said that participating in a Jewish burial is the greatest of mitzvot (good deeds), as it is a favor that can never, ever be repaid. Operation Benjamin describes itself as an extension of this mitzvah, and is a labor of purest love, devotion and respect.
During a 2015 visit to the World War II American Cemetery and Memorial, in Margraten, the Netherlands, we noticed at least two Star of David headstones among the sea of more than 8,000 white marble headstones stretching out into the distance.
I am sure there were many more Star of David headstones among the thousands of headstones laid out in long, silent curves across the near-endless verdant lawn, marking the final resting places of American Jewish troops who died on nearby battlefields fighting the Nazis during World War II.
For it is a fact that more than 11,000 American Jewish troops gave their lives for freedom during that War.
But not all those men found their final resting places under a Star of David in American cemeteries in Europe and the Pacific.
An organization, “Operation Benjamin,” has been working tirelessly since 2020, in cooperation with the American Battlefields Monuments Commission (ABMC) to identify Jewish soldiers at American military cemeteries all over the world who were mistakenly buried under Latin Crosses. Once the sites are identified, Operation Benjamin replaces the headstones with Stars of David, correctly reflecting the faith of the fallen Jewish soldiers.
It all started when Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter — a professor of Jewish history at Yeshiva University, New York — during a 2014 visit to the Normandy American Cemetery in France, while gazing at the more than 9,000 headstones at that cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, “suspected that there were too few Stars of David among the crosses.”
Upon his return home, Schacter discussed the issue with his friend and military historian, Shalom Lamm, and both decided to do something about it.
Their first mission was to investigate the case of Pvt. Benjamin Garadetsky, a soldier who served as a medic during World War II. Garadetsky was killed in France during a Luftwaffe bombing of the 2nd Armored Division on August 23, 1944, and was buried under a Latin Cross in the Normandy cemetery.
Through painstaking research of family and military records and working closely with the ABMC, Schacter and Lamm concluded that the young soldier resting under a Latin Cross was indeed Jewish.
On June 20, 2018, Schacter and Lamm joined Benjamin’s family members, friends and others and held a “dignified rededication ceremony” at the Normandy American Cemetery to correct a 74-year-old error.
Subsequently, they embarked on a noble mission to identify and rectify more cases of incorrect grave markers for Jewish American heroes of World War II, estimated by Lamm to be “in the low hundreds.”
And so, “Operation Benjamin” was born, named so in Garadetsky’s honor.
Its mission, “to locate Jewish personnel at American military cemeteries all over the world who, for various reasons, were buried under markers incorrectly representing their religion and heritage” and to “correct these mistakes and provide, these many decades later, comfort to the families of the fallen…”
Thus far, Operation Benjamin has been successful in replacing more than 20 headstones. Among them, five Stars of David were rededicated to five Jewish American service members buried at the Manila American Cemetery in the Philippines.
Most recently, the ABMC and Operation Benjamin replaced the Latin Cross headstones marking the graves of three Jewish American servicemembers in France with Star of David headstones.
The soldiers are:
• 1st Lt. Lawrence S. Craig from Chicago, Illinois, who landed at Utah Beach in Normandy, was killed in action on July 12, 1944, and was buried at Normandy American Cemetery.
• Pvt. Simon Goodman from Indianapolis, Indiana, who, on June 7, 1944, landed at Omaha Beach, was killed on July 30, and was buried at Brittany American Cemetery.
• 2nd Lt. Robert Meltzer from Los Angeles, California, who was shipped overseas shortly after D-Day, and, while leading his platoon on a foot patrol during a combat mission, was killed by German artillery fire. Initially buried alongside six of his men on a farm in the area of Milizac, France, his remains were first moved to the U.S. cemetery in St. James in January 1945, before being permanently transferred to Brittany American Cemetery.
This week, ABMC and Military.com reported on the unique case of a Jewish-American WWII soldier, 1st Lt. Nathan B. Baskind.
U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant Nathan B. Baskind (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
Baskind, the son of Lithuanian and Russian immigrants, was first believed to have been killed in action in a German ambush during a scouting mission about 65 miles northwest of the Normandy beaches.
His remains, however, could not be found, and he was listed as “Missing in Action,” his name carved into a wall in the Garden of the Missing in the Normandy American Cemetery along with the names of more than 1,500 other American troops whose bodies were never identified or recovered after the invasion and subsequent battles.
After the war, the American Graves Registration Command found German files showing that Baskind was captured and taken to a Luftwaffe field hospital for German air force personnel near Cherbourg, where he died on June 23, 1944.
He was buried in a military cemetery in Cherbourg with more than 20 Germans who had been killed in action.
In 1957, according to Military.com, the German War Graves Commission, notified the U.S. that an identification tag for Baskind and a shirt with a first lieutenant’s rank and tank destroyer insignia had been found while disinterring the Cherbourg military cemetery for the remains of 24 German troops.
However, the German investigators were unable to separate the comingled remains and they were re-interred in the Marigny German War Cemetery, 40 miles south of Cherbourg, the gravesite for more than 11,000 German troops killed in France.
Samantha Baskind, a great-niece of Lt. Baskind, when told that her great-uncle’s remains had been found in a German military cemetery, was shocked and upset. “Nazis and German soldiers. It was not just people he fought against; it was people who were trying to exterminate our people. What could be more horrific than Nate is buried with the people who killed a good portion of our family at Auschwitz,” she is reported to have said.
Operation Benjamin, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the Lawrence P. Gordon Foundation, Jewish advocates, family and friends persevered with support from the German War Graves Commission, the U.S. Defense Department, the AMBC and other organizations.
On June 23, 2024, on the 80th anniversary of his death, Jewish-American U.S. Army 1st Lt. Nathan B. Baskind was buried with full military honors at the Normandy American Cemetery, Colville-sur-Mer, France. The Star of David finally marks his grave.
Representing the U.S. government at the burial, Consul Elizabeth Webster said, “He will at last rest with his American brothers and sisters in arms who fought alongside him to defeat fascism and restore democracy.”
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Dorian de Wind is the military affairs correspondent for The Moderate Voice, with which San Diego Jewish World exchanges stories under auspices of the San Diego Online News Association.