Operation Levi
Operation Levi
en
de
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. (German War Graves Commission) works on behalf of the Federal Government. Its task is to recover the war dead abroad, to bury them with dignity, and to maintain their graves – including approximately 12,000 German soldiers of Jewish faith who died in the First World War.
What is often unknown today: Around 100,000 Jewish soldiers served in German uniform from 1914 to 1918. ‘They risked their lives for their country - you can't get more loyal than that,’ said Volksbund President Wolfgang Schneiderhan. Since 2023, the effort of the Volksbund to provide them with a grave marker with a Star of David, is called Operation Levi.
Jewish soldiers in the First World War
Currently, the Volksbund has identified around 2,500 individual graves with the Star of David at German war cemeteries in Western and Southern Europe. Many German soldiers of Jewish faith are buried under Christian grave crosses. The reason: especially in France, many provisional German military cemeteries were dissolved after 1918 and merged into larger units. In the confusion of the post-war years, Jewish grave markers were often replaced by crosses (mostly made of birch wood). In recent decades, the Volksbund has been able to mark a number of individual Jewish graves with steles and the Star of David instead of crosses.
Steles between crosses at the Neuville-St.-Vaast war cemetery in France © Uwe Zucchi
Grave of the soldier Meyer Levi
This cross is located on a war cemetery near Reims (photo). Research revealed that a Jewish front-line soldier named Meyer Levi from southern Hesse is buried there. This made the Volksbund intensify its efforts to replace the grave markers. The ‘Operation Levi: A Volksbund Initiative’ began.
In the search for relatives in the USA, Israel and around the world, Operation Benjamin supports the Volksbund, because in the Jewish family tradition, the knowledge of ancestors‘ graves has a special significance. This is how descendants of Meyer Levi were identified in the USA.
Relatives witness the inauguration
In May 2025, Operation Levi was officially launched with the dedication of six headstones for Jewish soldiers at five war cemeteries in north-eastern France. One of them marks the grave of Meyer Levi in Warmeriville.
"They were our comrades. We betrayed them. Remembering them is the least we can do," said Secretary General Dirk Backen at the inauguration event (speech in German/English). 14 family members of Meyer Levi, Fritz Rahmer and Siegmund Metzler, who is buried at the German military cemetery in Bertrimoutier, had travelled to participate in the event. The German Military Rabbi, Zsolt Balla, and the American historian Rabbi Dr Jacob J. Schacter from Yeshiwa University in New York also took part.
3 Bilder
Operation Benjamin helps
In 2023, the American-Israeli association Operation Benjamin approached the Volksbund. Their goal: to find American Jewish soldiers who are buried in the wrong place or under the wrong grave marker. The first joint project was the exhumation of 1st Lieutenant Nathan B. Baskind from a communal grave in Marigny (Normandy). So far, Operation Benjamin has been successful in around 40 cases.
On June 21, 2024, Nathan Baskind was laid to rest in the American cemetery Colleville-sur-Mer under the Star of David according to Jewish rites (more information: “The long journey of great-uncle Nathan” - German language).
2 Bilder
Destroyed steles replaced
At the German war cemetery in Moulin-sous-Touvent, France, the Volksbund restored Jewish gravestones that had been destroyed by vandalism following the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023. After the work was completed, representatives from five countries took part in a commemorative event: the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and Israel, where Alon Schuster, the great-nephew of the soldier Emanuel Schuster, had travelled from. His grave marker was also renewed.
