3-minute read
Matt fa*ganNorthJersey.com
The swirl of a Clifton's genealogist's mouse set off a tsunami of events in Europe that ultimately ended up repatriating a World War II veteran long presumed to be missing.
On Sunday, members of Operation Benjamin, an organization devoted to ensuring the graves of U.S. Jewish soldiers buried abroad have Stars of David headstones, will gather around the gravesite of Lt. Nathan Baskind in Normandy. The group acknowledges that it was Clifton's Eric Feinstein's curiosity that set these events in motion.
What happened?
Feinstein said he was scrolling around the German War Graves Commission website in December of 2022 when the name Nathan Baskind popped onto his screen.
"I clicked on the name and saw to my amazement that it was an American soldier buried in the Marigny German Cemetery in Northern France," Feinstein said. "This is the German Cemetery from the Normandy Campaign, 11 kilometers from Omaha Beach.Why would an American Jew be buried at a German WWII cemetery?"
A professional genealogist living in Clifton, he specializes in performing research, mostly for international law firms that specialize in citizenship work but he also works with private clients, families and individuals.
On that particular day, he had decided to look for Jewish names while performing research on the German War Graves Commission.
The commission he said administers an array of Jewish graves, Holocaust victims, World War I veterans, prisoners of war, that are in German cemeteries in Germany, Europe and all over the world. One of the names he searched for was Nathan, which only turned out a few results, including Baskind.
He delved deeper into Baskind's story and visited American Battlefield Monuments Commission site.
Bingo.
The Americans had him listed at the Normandy American Cemetery at Colleville, France on the tablets of the Missing in Action.
"I said to myself, how missing in action can he be if the Germans have him as buried 10 miles away?" he asked.
A deeper dive uncovered that Baskind was from Pittsburgh, and the son of Abraham Baskind and Lena Shapiro. Since he was Jewish, he reached out to Operation Benjamin.
What Operation Benjamin found
Operation Benjamin, dedicated to identifying and correcting burial errors for American-Jewish soldiers mistakenly buried under Latin Crosses, recovered the first lieutenant's remains with the help of numerous national international agencies.
His identification was confirmed by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in May. DNA testing showed a 99.98 match.
Baskind, who landed on Utah Beach on D-Day with the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion, went ahead of his troops to reconnoiter their position in the Battle of Cherbourg on June 23, 1944.He was ambushed and never heard from again, although German records after the war noted that he died from his wounds that night.
Other attempts
In early 1948, the International Committee of the Red Cross sent the U.S. Army one of Baskind’s identification tags, according to a DPAA posting.
In November 1957, theVolksbund, which is the German War Grave Commission, contacted the U.S. Army regarding the lieutenant.
While disinterring a mass grave of what were believed to be 24 Germans buried in the Cherbourg cemetery, aVolksbundteam discovered one of Baskind’s identification tags and remnants of an American-type shirt with a first lieutenant rank and tank destroyer insignia, the DPAA posted.
The remains in the mass grave were commingled, and the German team was unable to separate them into individual sets.
The German investigators therefore placed the remains in seven burial pouches and then re-interred them in the Marigny German War Cemetery, 40 miles south of Cherbourg, the DPAA posted. Subsequent attempts to identify the remains of Baskind by U.S. and German investigators were not successful until the latest search began after Feinstein's most recent query.
This Sunday, 80 years after he died and buried in a mass grave with dozens of German soldiers, his remains will be buried among his fallen brethren, according to Operation Benjamin. Members of his extended family are also expected to be on hand.
Shalom Lamm, chief historian and co-founder of Operation Benjamin, expressed profound gratitude at the resolution brought to the Baskind family.
"Today’s news ends an era of uncertainty and pain that has left the Baskind family without answers for nearly 80 years. At the same time, it marks the beginning of a new era in which these families can celebrate Lieutenant Baskind’s faith, service, and sacrifice," Lamm said.
