APRIL 16 • 2020 | 15
A photograph with the story
showed a jovial Waldman and
Wolfe together. The news that
accompanied the photo, how-
ever, was devastating: “Latest
War Department releases report
them both prisoners of the
Japs.
”
Almost two years later to
the day, Feb. 2, 1945, the JN
published updates on Waldman
and Wolfe in side-by-side sto-
ries. The Wolfe family, it was
reported, had received their
first letter from their impris-
oned son since August of 1943,
stating he was in good health.
Sydney Wolfe would survive his
captivity and eventually return
to Detroit.
Waldman’
s parents also
received a postcard, the con-
tents of which were not pub-
lished, but which was described
as “the first communication
they had received in years.
” The
postcard confirmed he was a
POW
. What they didn’
t know at
the time was their beloved son
Arthur had already died in cap-
tivity more than a year earlier.
CLOSURE AT LONG LAST
On Feb. 12, having just traveled
more than 7,000 miles from
their home in Torrance to the
Manila American Cemetery in
the Philippines, Vicki and Rich
Katz participated in the cere-
mony that would finally bring
closure to the long wartime
saga of their uncle, Pvt. Arthur
Waldman.
Shalom Lamm, Steve Lamar
and Rabbi Jacob Schacter of
OB, the team who collaborated
with the Katzes, also traveled
from the U.S. to witness the
rededication. ABMC Chief
Operations Officer John
Wessels and the American
and Israeli ambassadors to the
Philippines were among other
dignitaries in attendance.
Vicki was grateful for the
chance to represent her family
at the rededication and “to
honor Arthur’
s life and service,
to give him the funeral he
deserved and, in some way, let
Arthur know that his sacrifice
was not forgotten.
”
Little is known about Arthur
Waldman’
s life in Detroit prior
to the war other than, according
to the JN, he was “a graduate of
Northwestern High School, he
attended Wayne University for
one year, majoring in commer-
cial art and advertising, worked
for his brother-in-law of
Shore’
s Cafe, and was formerly
employed at Harry Suffrin’
s,
” a
well-known men’
s haberdasher.
Operation Benjamin’
s work
is far from done. Hundreds of
Jewish soldiers buried under
crosses await identification.
The coronavirus has postponed
the next scheduled headstone
rededication for three Jewish
officers in Belgium and France
on May 20.
While the Katzes sought
out Operation Benjamin, in
most cases it is Lamm who
reaches out to family members
to inform them of OB’
s dis-
coveries. In describing those
phone calls, he says, “There’
s
always that moment of stunned
silence. Of disbelief. Memories
emerge as if from a distant fog,
and then almost always there’
s
the remembrance of parents
who were so pained by the
experience they could never
talk about it without crying.
”
Operation Benjamin is in
more than just the business of
changing grave markers. The
exhaustive research they per-
form and interviews they con-
duct do for descendants of lost
war heroes what the soldiers
couldn’
t do for themselves —
tell their story. Or, as Vicki Katz
states in her case, “we came to
know Arthur as a real person.
”