 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.
” 

