An American Hero Spent 80 Years Buried With His Enemies

1st Lt. Nathan B. Baskind was 26 years old when he was drafted in 1942. He came from Pittsburgh. He landed on Utah Beach on D-Day with the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion and led a tank destroyer unit behind enemy lines.

On June 23, 1944 — 17 days after D-Day — Baskind and his driver were on a reconnaissance mission during the Battle of Cherbourg. They were ambushed. Machine gun fire killed him.

German forces took him prisoner. He was transported to a Luftwaffe field hospital. He died that same day from his wounds, according to Stars and Stripes.

Then things went sideways for the next 80 years.

How He Ended Up in a German Cemetery

German forces buried Baskind in a mass grave alongside 23 Nazi soldiers. After the war, that grave was combined with another and relocated to the Marigny (Normandie) German War Graves Cemetery — a burial site for Germany's war dead.

A Jewish American soldier. Among Nazis. For eight decades.

In 1957, the American Grave Registration Service tried to identify his remains and failed. They did recover his unit patch, lieutenant's bars, and dog tag. But without a positive definitive identification, the Baskind family was told nothing, according to Fox News Digital.

His parents died not knowing where their son was buried.

The Break That Changed Everything

In 2022, an American genealogist visiting a German military cemetery spotted the name Baskind on a mass grave marker. That name didn't belong there. He contacted Operation Benjamin — a nonprofit dedicated to correcting the headstones of Jewish American soldiers mistakenly buried under crosses instead of Stars of David.

"Nathan Baskind is a unique story, even for us," Operation Benjamin co-founder and chief historian Shalom Lamm told Fox News Digital. The organization ran with it.

DNA testing confirmed what the genealogist suspected. Baskind's remains were identified, exhumed, and brought home — or as close to home as a soldier killed in France can get.

The Ceremony

On Sunday, May 25, 2026 — Memorial Day weekend — 1st Lt. Nathan B. Baskind was interred at the Normandy American Cemetery in France with full military honors. A Star of David now marks his grave.

"He will at last rest with his American brothers and sisters in arms who fought alongside him to defeat fascism and restore democracy," U.S. Consul for Western France Elizabeth Webster said at the ceremony, according to Yahoo News.

Baskind's great-niece Samantha Baskind attended. She shared a detail that runs counter to the solemnity of the moment: Baskind's middle initial may have stood for "Brother" — because his twin sister's middle name was legally "Sister." Their Russian-born parents apparently didn't fully understand how American birth certificates worked. A man drafted to fight for a country his family was still learning to navigate. He didn't come home. His twin sister lived her whole life not knowing where he was.

Operation Benjamin's Mission

This case revealed a broader problem. Jewish American soldiers sometimes listed other religions — or no religion — on their dog tags. Some did it to avoid targeted mistreatment if captured. The result: dozens of Jewish soldiers ended up buried under crosses.

Operation Benjamin has been correcting that record for years. No fanfare. No federal budget. Just volunteers and genealogists doing work the government couldn't finish.

Baskind's case was different from their usual mission — he wasn't just mismarked, he was buried in the wrong country, in the wrong cemetery, among the men who killed him.

The Bureaucratic Failure

Most outlets are running this as a feel-good Memorial Day story. It is moving. But they're glossing over what happened before the ceremony.

The U.S. government's own Grave Registration Service found Baskind's personal effects in 1957 and said nothing to the family because they couldn't make a "definitive" identification. The family spent decades in limbo. His parents died without knowing.

It took a private nonprofit and a civilian genealogist visiting a German cemetery on his own time to crack this open in 2022. Not the Department of Defense. Not the Army. A volunteer.

A Soldier Finally Home

Nathan Baskind served. He fought. He died for this country at 28 years old. Then the system lost him — literally buried him with the enemy — for 80 years.

A Star of David now marks his grave at Normandy. He's finally with his fellow Americans. His great-niece was there to see it. His parents never got that chance.

Freedoms are never free. Neither, apparently, is making sure the men who paid for them end up in the right ground.