Operation Levi

Operation Levi

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 each of them with a grave marker with a Star of David, is called Operation Levi.
 

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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. 

Since 2026, Operation Levi has been supported by the Alfred Landecker Foundation. 

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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).

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Josef Leiter and his family

A plaque bearing the name Josef Leiter at the Consenvoye War Cemetery in France. Moritz Leiter is still missing today.

Josef Leiter and his family from Aufhausen, Württemberg, represent so many others: all four sons fought for Germany in World War I. Josef and Moritz died in 1914; only Emanuel and Albert survived. Emanuel died in 1932, before the persecution of Jews in Germany began. Albert managed to flee to the United States.

Of the four sisters, only Augusta survived the Holocaust; she also emigrated. Mina died in 1940 as a mentally ill patient at the Grafeneck euthanasia center, a victim of “Aktion T4.” Rosa and Bella (“Betty”) were deported to Riga in December 1941 and murdered in Bikernieki. Inge Auerbacher, the grandniece of Josef Leiter, survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp. As a survivor, she continues to fight against forgetting to this day and spoke on this topic in the Bundestag in 2022, among other occasions.

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Operation Levi is a powerful and visible stand against anti-Semitism, which is currently on the rise not only in Germany but throughout Europe. Support our initiative and join us in ensuring that the memory of Jewish soldiers in World War I and the fate of their families is not forgotten!

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