From AFT:
“Jewish troops who died in
World War II finally receive Star of David headstones”
(Seven Jewish-American troops who
died in World War II and were mistakenly buried under crosses will have their
grave markers replaced with Stars of David on April 27 and 28, 2022. Top row,
from L to R: Pvt. Marvin Ashkenas, Pvt. Albert Belmont, 2nd Lt. Howard Feldman.
Bottom row, from L to R: Maj. Maxwell Jerome Papurt, 2nd Lt. Kenneth Robinson,
Tech. 5th Grade Everett Seixas Jr., 1st Lt. Joseph Sugarman Jr.)
Visitors to American World War II
cemeteries in Europe often find themselves awestruck at the seemingly endless
rows of crosses, each marking the final resting place of a U.S. service member
who died while trying to liberate the western part of the continent from Nazi
German occupation. But those crosses inspired a question for a friend of Shalom
Lamm, a retired entrepreneur who leads Operation Benjamin — a non-profit
dedicated to ensuring that Jewish soldiers who are buried overseas have grave
markers that reflect their faith. Lamm was talking with Rabbi Jacob Schacter, now
the organization’s treasurer, in 2014, when Schacter recounted a trip to the
Normandy American Cemetery in France. The rabbi suspected that there were too
few Stars of David among the crosses. The CEO “ran home” that night and
“counted the photographs” that Schacter had brought from the cemetery, reaching
the same conclusion.
(Mourners gather around the grave
of a Jewish-American soldier in 2018 after his incorrect grave marker was
replaced by a Star of David.)
Lamm told Army Times in a phone
interview that he “could not sleep,” consumed with a question: “Where are the
missing Jews?” Since then, Lamm, Schacter and others have banded together to
identify Jewish-American troops who are mistakenly buried under the Christian
cross. They successfully lobbied the American Battle Monuments Commission to
correct the marker for Pvt. Benjamin Garadetsky at Normandy in 2018. Lamm and
his team have replaced 11 more since, including troops resting in the
Philippines.
And Wednesday and Thursday, seven
more Jewish-American troops buried in cemeteries across France, Belgium and
Luxembourg will have their markers replaced with Stars of David:
Pvt. Marvin F. Ashkenas of
Bloomfield, N.J., who was killed in action Oct. 3, 1944, in France. His ID tags
were lost when he was killed, according to an Operation Benjamin release, and
his widow didn’t answer letters inquiring about his religion.
Pvt. Albert Belmont, of
Syracuse, N.Y., who was killed in action Nov. 30, 1944, in France.
2nd Lt. Howard U. Feldman of
Allentown, Pa., was a B-17 bomber navigator who died when his plane was
shot down over then-Czechoslovakia April 25, 1945. His religion was erroneously
listed as Catholic.
Maj. Maxwell Jerome Papurt,
who lived in Brooklyn, was an Office of Strategic Services counterintelligence
officer who was wounded and captured in 1944. He died Nov. 29 of that year when
a friendly bombing raid destroyed the POW camp where he was held — because he
had hidden his Jewish faith, he was buried under a cross.
2nd Lt. Kenneth E. Robinson
was an airman from Cleveland who died when his B-17 bomber went down Aug. 17,
1943, during a massive daylight raid targeting a ball bearing factory in
Schweinfurt, Germany.
Tech. 5th Grade Everett N.
Seixas, Jr., of New York, died during the Battle of the Bulge Dec. 27,
1944, while serving with the 80th Infantry Division. Seixas was listed as
Protestant in War Department records for unknown reasons, despite his family
lineage including influential Jewish-American faith leaders.
1st Lt. Joseph M. Sugarman, Jr.,
of Memphis, Tenn., a bomber pilot who died when his plane was shot down March
11, 1945, near Hamburg.
Why were some Jews buried
under crosses?
(The stone Star of David grave
marker for Pfc. Benjamin Garadetsky in Normandy American Cemetery, which
replaced the incorrect Latin Cross headstone.)
Lamm’s group has a number of
theories on why some troops didn’t have their faith adequately represented at
their gravesites. One, Lamm said, is simple administrative error — mistakes
happened during the pre-Internet era, as they do today, and it was more
difficult back then to find genealogical information to assist in correcting
the errors. That’s what happened with Ashkenas, whose remains were also
difficult to identify. For some of the troops, the grave markers may be an
unintended consequence of a survival strategy. During World War II, all U.S.
troops had reason to fear falling into Nazi captivity — but some did more than
others. Many American Jews who fought their way through France and into Belgium
and Germany were painfully aware that they could face summary execution or
worse if captured. Data errors mean that there could be hundreds of mistakes
included on the planned Wall of Remembrance at the Korean War Veterans Memorial
in the nation's capital. That led some Jewish-American troops to deface their
dog tags in an effort to hide their religion if captured. Others simply said
they were Christians when they first joined the military, hoping to avoid the
issue altogether. Operation Benjamin says at least one of the seven whose
headstones will soon be replaced, Sugarman, did that. So did Albert Belmont,
according to his daughter.
What it means to families
(Pvt. Albert Belmont, seen in an
undated photo.)
For Barbara Belmont, who will be
in attendance when her father Albert has his cross replaced with a Star of
David this week, the ceremony represents the culmination of a lifelong effort
to discover her father. “This, to me, will almost be like being at his
funeral,” Barbara told Army Times in a phone interview. “[The ceremony has] a
meaning of contact; it’s meaning I can do something for him.” “I was barely
three [years old] when he was killed,” she explained. Her mother remarried and
moved from Kansas City to St. Louis, and the family didn’t discuss Albert ever.
The war’s impact didn’t end with Albert’s death, which “changed everything.”
Her stepfather hid his combat service — and what Barbara now considers PTSD —
from the family, too. Since she first saw a photo of Albert when she was 13,
Barbara explained, she’s “always been searching [for him], because I wanted to
know him and all about him.” Family stories from her dying maternal grandmother
a few years later depicted a generous, loving man, only intensifying her desire
to find him. Life stymied her efforts for decades, she admitted. She was able
to take her daughters to Albert’s grave in 1992, where she found him buried
under a cross. She didn’t know what to think at the time. She wasn’t sure how
religious he’d been, and she “just didn’t move forward with” requesting a
marker change. But she was struck by a “strange” lack of Jewish grave markers. Then
in 1994, she received a cold call from a cousin from Albert’s side of the
family and was introduced to a world she’d never known. She also learned of her
father’s philanthropy, and how he supported both secular and Jewish causes. “[In]
my father’s family, there were six boys and one girl. The oldest fought in the
Spanish Civil War, and then the rest of them all fought in World War II,” she
proudly recounted. Barbara also learned from one of Albert’s brothers that “my
father...put Protestant down” on his enlistment paperwork because he feared
that if he “were captured...[he] would be shot immediately by the German
troops.” But the marker replacement stayed on the back burner until she heard
from Operation Benjamin in recent years. They found her father’s name on the
rolls of a “Jewish board” in St. Louis that collected the names of local Jews
who were headed overseas to fight. Barbara said it’s “wonderful” that groups
like Lamm’s are working to correct the record for “men of the Jewish faith that
are lying under a tombstone that does not represent their religious faith.” She
hopes the work continues — and that more people come to know their ancestors in
a new way through the process, just like she did. “I just grew up in a vacuum.
I didn’t know [about his Jewish community involvement], but I do now,” Barbara
explained. “It was important to him, and so I feel very good about this.”
^ I have visited National
Cemeteries throughout the United States and several overseas. It’s great to see
these errors finally corrected. ^
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