Jewish troops who died in World Conflict II lastly obtain Star of David headstones

Guests to American World Conflict II cemeteries in Europe usually discover themselves awestruck on the seemingly limitless rows of crosses, every marking the ultimate resting place of a U.S. service member who died whereas making an attempt to liberate the western a part of the continent from Nazi German occupation.

However these crosses impressed a query for a buddy of Shalom Lamm, a retired entrepreneur who leads Operation Benjamin — a non-profit devoted to making sure that Jewish troopers who’re buried abroad have grave markers that replicate their religion.

Lamm was speaking with Rabbi Jacob Schacter, now the group’s treasurer, in 2014, when Schacter recounted a visit to the Normandy American Cemetery in France. The rabbi suspected that there have been too few Stars of David among the many crosses.

The CEO “ran residence” that evening and “counted the pictures” that Schacter had introduced from the cemetery, reaching the identical conclusion.

Lamm advised Army Occasions in a telephone interview that he “couldn’t sleep,” consumed with a query: “The place are the lacking Jews?”

Since then, Lamm, Schacter and others have banded collectively to establish Jewish-American troops who’re mistakenly buried beneath the Christian cross.

They efficiently lobbied the American Battle Monuments Fee to right the marker for Pvt. Benjamin Garadetsky at Normandy in 2018. Lamm and his group have changed 11 extra since, together with troops resting within the Philippines.

And Wednesday and Thursday, seven extra Jewish-American troops buried in cemeteries throughout France, Belgium and Luxembourg can have their markers changed with Stars of David:

• Pvt. Marvin F. Ashkenas of Bloomfield, N.J., who was killed in motion Oct. 3, 1944, in France. His ID tags have been misplaced when he was killed, in accordance with an Operation Benjamin launch, and his widow didn’t reply letters inquiring about his faith.
• Pvt. Albert Belmont, of Syracuse, N.Y., who was killed in motion Nov. 30, 1944, in France.
• 2nd Lt. Howard U. Feldman of Allentown, Pa., was a B-17 bomber navigator who died when his aircraft was shot down over then-Czechoslovakia April 25, 1945. His faith was erroneously listed as Catholic.
• Maj. Maxwell Jerome Papurt, who lived in Brooklyn, was an Workplace of Strategic Providers counterintelligence officer who was wounded and captured in 1944. He died Nov. 29 of that yr when a pleasant bombing raid destroyed the POW camp the place he was held — as a result of he had hidden his Jewish religion, he was buried beneath a cross.
• 2nd Lt. Kenneth E. Robinson was an airman from Cleveland who died when his B-17 bomber went down Aug. 17, 1943, throughout an enormous daylight raid focusing on a ball bearing manufacturing unit in Schweinfurt, Germany.
• Tech. fifth Grade Everett N. Seixas, Jr., of New York, died through the Battle of the Bulge Dec. 27, 1944, whereas serving with the eightieth Infantry Division. Seixas was listed as Protestant in Conflict Division data for unknown causes, regardless of his household lineage together with influential Jewish-American religion leaders.
• 1st Lt. Joseph M. Sugarman, Jr., of Memphis, Tenn., a bomber pilot who died when his aircraft was shot down March 11, 1945, close to Hamburg.

Why have been some Jews buried beneath crosses?

Lamm’s group has quite a few theories on why some troops didn’t have their religion adequately represented at their gravesites.

One, Lamm stated, is easy administrative error — errors occurred through the pre-Web period, as they do immediately, and it was tougher again then to search out genealogical info to help in correcting the errors.

That’s what occurred with Ashkenas, whose stays have been additionally tough to establish.

For among the troops, the grave markers could also be an unintended consequence of a survival technique.

Throughout World Conflict II, all U.S. troops had purpose to worry falling into Nazi captivity — however some did greater than others. Many American Jews who fought their method by way of France and into Belgium and Germany have been painfully conscious that they might face abstract execution or worse if captured.

That led some Jewish-American troops to deface their canine tags in an effort to cover their faith if captured. Others merely stated they have been Christians after they first joined the army, hoping to keep away from the problem altogether.

Operation Benjamin says not less than one of many seven whose headstones will quickly get replaced, Sugarman, did that. So did Albert Belmont, in accordance with his daughter.

What it means to households

For Barbara Belmont, who will likely be in attendance when her father Albert has his cross changed with a Star of David this week, the ceremony represents the fruits of a lifelong effort to find her father.

“This, to me, will virtually be like being at his funeral,” Barbara advised Army Occasions in a telephone interview. “[The ceremony has] a which means of contact; it’s which means I can do one thing for him.”

“I used to be barely three [years old] when he was killed,” she defined. Her mom remarried and moved from Kansas Metropolis to St. Louis, and the household didn’t focus on Albert ever.

The conflict’s influence didn’t finish with Albert’s dying, which “modified every part.” Her stepfather hid his fight service — and what Barbara now considers PTSD — from the household, too.

Since she first noticed a photograph of Albert when she was 13, Barbara defined, she’s “at all times been looking [for him], as a result of I needed to know him and all about him.” Household tales from her dying maternal grandmother just a few years later depicted a beneficiant, loving man, solely intensifying her need to search out him.

Life stymied her efforts for many years, she admitted. She was capable of take her daughters to Albert’s grave in 1992, the place she discovered him buried beneath a cross.

She didn’t know what to assume on the time. She wasn’t positive how non secular he’d been, and she or he “simply didn’t transfer ahead with” requesting a marker change. However she was struck by a “unusual” lack of Jewish grave markers.

Then in 1994, she acquired a chilly name from a cousin from Albert’s facet of the household and was launched to a world she’d by no means identified. She additionally discovered of her father’s philanthropy, and the way he supported each secular and Jewish causes.

“[In] my father’s household, there have been six boys and one lady. The oldest fought within the Spanish Civil Conflict, after which the remainder of all of them fought in World Conflict II,” she proudly recounted.

Barbara additionally discovered from one in every of Albert’s brothers that “my father…put Protestant down” on his enlistment paperwork as a result of he feared that if he “have been captured…[he] could be shot instantly by the German troops.”

However the marker substitute stayed on the again burner till she heard from Operation Benjamin lately. They discovered her father’s identify on the rolls of a “Jewish board” in St. Louis that collected the names of native Jews who have been headed abroad to struggle.

Barbara stated it’s “great” that teams like Lamm’s are working to right the document for “males of the Jewish religion which might be mendacity beneath a tombstone that doesn’t signify their non secular religion.”

She hopes the work continues — and that extra folks come to know their ancestors in a brand new method by way of the method, similar to she did.

“I simply grew up in a vacuum. I didn’t know [about his Jewish community involvement], however I do now,” Barbara defined. “It was necessary to him, and so I really feel excellent about this.”