The remains of a Jewish American soldier from World War II were brought to the United States 80 years after he disappeared and were discovered in a mass grave alongside Nazi soldiers.
Lieutenant Nathan Baskind, the son of Lithuanian and Russian Jewish immigrants, served on D-Day and then disappeared at the Battle of Cherbourg on June 23, 1944.
The soldier’s fate was unknown for decades and he is listed on the Walls of the Missing at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.
A genealogist touring a German military cemetery noticed Baskind’s name on a plaque beneath three crosses and contacted Operation Benjamin, an organization working to identify Jewish American soldiers buried under incorrect religious markers.
“I felt tremendous existential anguish because this child was not calm and was mixed up with the enemy,” Shalom Lamm, co-founder of Operation Benjaminsaid The New York Post.
Lieutenant Nathan Baskind (pictured), the son of Lithuanian and Russian Jewish immigrants, served on D-Day and then disappeared at the Battle of Cherbourg on June 23, 1944.
“You have a Jewish boy from Pittsburgh buried with these enemy soldiers,” he said emotionally.
Baskind served in Company C, 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion and was commanding a platoon of four M-10 tank destroyers on June 23, 1944, when he was shot by German soldiers, according to the Defense Prisoner of War and Missing in Action Accounting Agency.
After the war, U.S. Graves Records Command personnel learned from German records that Baskind had been captured and died of his wounds in a hospital for German air force personnel.
He was originally buried with 23 German soldiers at the hospital, then in 1957, when officials were combining that grave with another, they found one of his identification tags.
The German War Graves Commission, the Volksbund, reported locating one of Baskind’s identification tags and parts of American military clothing, but was unable to identify her remains.
Baskind’s fate was unknown for decades until a genealogist touring a German military cemetery noticed his name on a plaque beneath three crosses (pictured).
His remains were found in the Marigny German War Graves Cemetery along with those of 52 Nazi soldiers.
His remains were then combined with those of 52 Nazi soldiers and transferred to the Marigny German War Graves Cemetery.
After Lamm and his partner, Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, were contacted about Baskind’s grave, they began the process of exhuming his remains and bringing him home.
‘I just couldn’t stop until we were done. It just tore my soul. We had to bring him home, that was it,” Lamm said.
On an unrelated trip over Memorial Day 2023, Lamm and Schacter led a delegation of 60 others to become the first Jews to visit Baskind in 79 years.
Baskind’s great-niece, Samantha Baskind, a professor of art history and Holocaust studies at the University of Cleveland, pleaded with German Brigadier General Dirk Backen to exhume her body.
“Knowing that he was buried in a German cemetery, so far from home and under a cross, is a scar for my family,” Samantha told the Post.
The Volksbund, together with private investigators and Operation Benjamin, were finally able to exhume the remains from the mass grave in December.
On May 29, he was transferred to the custody of 21st Theater Sustainment’s mortuary affairs team and will be buried later this year.
‘The grave itself was soaked in water, the earth was the worst condition you could have. “The anthropologists said we wouldn’t find anything,” Lamm said.
‘At each stage, our chances of success become smaller and smaller. “It seemed very gloomy, very depressing.”
In February 2024, researchers confirmed that they had isolated and identified Baskind’s remains.
On May 29, he was transferred to the custody of the 21st Theater Sustainment mortuary affairs team and will be taken to the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, where he will be buried later this year.
“My great-uncle’s recovery is almost surreal and brings long-awaited comfort to my family,” Samantha said.