Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on April 27, 2022

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 organizations 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.

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.

Mourners gather around the grave of a Jewish-American soldier in 2018 after his incorrect grave marker was replaced by a Star of David. (Courtesy/Operation Benjamin)

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:

Lamms group has a number of theories on why some troops didnt have their faith adequately represented at their gravesites.

The stone Star of David grave marker for Pfc. Benjamin Garadetsky in Normandy American Cemetery, which replaced the incorrect Latin Cross headstone. (Courtesy/Operation Benjamin)

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.

Thats 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.

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.

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; its meaning I can do something for him.

Pvt. Albert Belmont, seen in an undated photo. (Courtesy/Operation Benjamin)

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 didnt discuss Albert ever.

The wars impact didnt end with Alberts 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, shes 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 Alberts grave in 1992, where she found him buried under a cross.

She didnt know what to think at the time. She wasnt sure how religious hed been, and she just didnt 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 Alberts side of the family and was introduced to a world shed never known. She also learned of her fathers philanthropy, and how he supported both secular and Jewish causes.

[In] my fathers 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 Alberts 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 fathers 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 its wonderful that groups like Lamms 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 didnt 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.

Davis Winkie is a staff reporter covering the Army. He originally joined Military Times as a reporting intern in 2020. Before journalism, Davis worked as a military historian. He is also a human resources officer in the Army National Guard.

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Jewish troops who died in World War II finally receive Star of David headstones - Military Times

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