In 1938, when Frank Kurzinger was 15 years old, his Jewish family emigrated from Germany to the United States and made their way to Denver, Colorado. A year later, Frank was confirmed at Temple Emanuel on Shabbat, May 28, 1939.
Six years later, at the age of 22, U.S. Army Private First Class Frank T. Kurzinger, 85th Infantry Regiment of the legendary 10th Mountain Division, was killed in action in Italy on Feb. 20, 1945, defending his adopted country as a combat medic.
All these details of Frank Kurzinger’s life and death might be long forgotten by his family, this generation, and even historians who study World War II—were it not for one more detail.
At the Florence American Cemetery in Italy, Kurzinger was buried under a Latin cross—not under a Star of David.
For the next eight decades, his remains lay under a cross. It was not a clerical error, and it was not a malicious act. Like many Jewish soldiers, Kurzinger was terribly afraid of what German forces would do to him if he were captured and identified as Jewish. When he enlisted, instead of putting an “H” for “Hebrew” on his dog tags he listed himself as “C” for Catholic.
Now, 80 years after his death, Private Kurzinger will be recognized in a way that honors his identity and heritage, thanks to the diligent and thorough research and extraordinary devotion of Operation Benjamin, a nonprofit devoted to correcting errors in headstones of Jewish soldiers buried in American military cemeteries around the world.
In mid-May, a group including two members of Kurzinger’s family, representatives of the U.S. military, and dozens of supporters of Operation Benjamin will gather at the Florence American Cemetery to witness Operation Benjamin and the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) replace the cross at Kurzinger’s grave with a Star of David. On the same trip, two additional Jewish servicemen killed in action will have Latin crosses replaced with stars of David in the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery.
“This happened so long ago that when we contacted Frank’s family to let them know they had an uncle who died in the war, they had only a hazy recollection of him,” says Shalom Lamm, Co-founder and Chief Historian of Operation Benjamin. “With the work we do, we often introduce these soldiers to their own families.”
How Operation Benjamin began
When Shalom Lamm describes the confluence of events that led him to co-found a nonprofit grounded in military history and genealogy after a 38-year career in the private sector, he uses the word serendipity.
“I believe in the divine guiding hand of G-d,” he says. “It took me a lifetime to get here.”
He describes his business career as “very full,” but he could not ignore his true passion, so he returned to school to get a master’s degree in American military history. In 2014, his longtime friend and scholar Rabbi Dr. Jacob Schacter was leading a private tour to the Normandie region. They decided to make a stop at the iconic Normandy American Cemetery. On the trip, Schacter had a gut instinct that he could not shake even after he left Normandy.
“It was holy, hallowed ground, and it was so moving to be there,” Schacter told Lamm after the trip. “But I just thought there should have been more Stars of David.”
So, imagine this. Lamm came home and counted—literally counted—the Stars of David at Normandy. He knew that 2.7 percent of the U.S. casualties in World War II were Jews. Based on that math, there should have been about 230 Stars of David at Normandy. He counted only 149.
“It became a burning question,” he says. “Where did all the Jews go?”
A key clue and “amazing insight” emerged from an article that another good friend and rabbi wrote about his father’s World War II dog tags and the fact that many Jews put either “C” for Catholic or “P” for Protestant on their dog tags in case they were captured by the Nazis.
Lamm and Co-Founder Rabbi Schacter decided to do an experiment. They would pick a random soldier at Normandy buried under a cross and research his life. They picked Benjamin Garadetsky based on one criterion—his name sounded Jewish.
With the help of Lamm’s in-law and third co-founder Stephen Lamar, who is a very good amateur genealogist, they researched Garadetsky. He had been born in Ukraine and grew up in the Bronx. His parents were buried in a cemetery that was 10 minutes from Lamm’s home on Long Island. When Lamm and his wife drove to the cemetery to investigate, they realized they “had struck gold…it was totally Jewish.”
“So we asked, what is Benjamin Garadetsky doing under a cross in Normandy?” Lamm says. “It was a shocking epiphany because we realized real mistakes had been made.”
Thus was “Operation Benjamin” born.
How Operation Benjamin corrects history
From its humble beginnings, Operation Benjamin has grown into a robust organization that is sustained by private donations. It does not accept donations from families because, as Lamm says, “this is a mission of gratitude and love, not money.”
Before an error can be corrected, three full-time staff genealogists with expertise in military research thoroughly investigate cases to provide enough documentation to clear the very high bar set by the ABMC, the federal agency that runs all overseas cemeteries. The documents they research might include family burial and marriage records, shul bulletins, newspaper accounts, community records, and even ancestor tombstones.
Rarely, a family will come to them because they have visited a grave and have been shocked to see a cross instead of a star. They still use the Benjamin Garadetsky “hunch” method, researching soldiers whose names sound Jewish although it’s an imperfect approach—a “Jacobson” buried at Normandy was not Jewish, but a “Daughtery” was Jewish.
It was a hunch that led them to research Frank Kurzinger’s story—his name sounded Jewish. From databases, his basic service records offered more clues. From their research, the genealogists built a family tree that led them to three descendants of the Kurzinger family. For the genealogists, this process offers more than the satisfaction of creating a family tree—it gives them the opportunity to correct history.
Kurzinger died when American forces attacked the Germans who were holding the high ground of 3,800-foot Mount Belvedere in Italy’s Northern Apennines. As the Americans began their ascent, they faced German mortars, rockets, artillery fire, and land mines. One wrong step meant death or injury. When one of Kurzinger’s fellow soldiers stepped on a land mine, another called for a medic.
“I will be right over,” Kurzinger called out. Those would be his final words. He died when he stepped on a land mine.
That soldier who called for help from a medic in February 1945 lived to be 93 years old. He spent the rest of his life with survivor’s guilt for Frank Kurzinger’s death. But now, thanks to Operation Benjamin, Frank Kurzinger—who left the dangers of Germany only to die defending the United States—will rest at peace under the universal symbol of Judaism.
“I am surrounded by heroes every day, and I bring the stories of these fallen soldiers back to life,” Lamm says. “These men fought for us, and when they were killed, they lost their ability to fight for their own identity. We pick up that flag and carry it for them.”