Tuesday, July 4, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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Eighty years ago, when I was barely old enough to remember, my sister and I watched as our uncle, Simon Goodman, shipped off to go fight Hitler’s army. He never returned.
This year, on a fateful trip to Normandy over Memorial Day weekend, my sister, my son and I were finally able to say goodbye to him on behalf of our family and the grateful nation for which he gave his life in defense of freedom.
My Uncle Simon, or “Sy” as everyone knew him, was born in Indianapolis in 1919 and worked for a while after high school before being drafted into the Army in 1944. The day after D-Day, June 7, his regiment landed at Omaha Beach, where several of its crafts were immediately destroyed as they approached the beach.
For much of the next few weeks, Uncle Sy’s division worked its way through the French countryside, securing a small town called Saint-Lô and allowing Allied troops to advance. The troops achieved their goal in mid-July, but in the process, Pvt. Simon Goodman — one of my mother’s two brothers — was killed by enemy fire and was buried in France.
As was typical in the years after World War II, the War Department made every effort possible to reach out to our family — as they did with thousands of other Gold Star families — in order to process and lay to rest those who had made the ultimate sacrifice.
While Sy was killed in July, his wife, Lillian, and my grandmother, Flossie, received word in November 1944. His grandmother, Hannah, who helped raise Uncle Sy, was soon thereafter contacted by someone from the National Jewish Welfare Board to help with the process of laying soldiers like my uncle to rest. Hannah confirmed Sy’s religious affiliation as Jewish, and in October 1945, the Jewish Welfare Board certified to the War Department as such.
While that should have been the final answer as to what would be the marker above Sy’s grave, there was more to our family’s story.
For one reason or another still unknown to our family, Simon Goodman — the son of Jewish parents — was buried under a Latin Cross. This was an error that I have since discovered happened more frequently than one would expect.
As far as I know, my mother — who died in 2007 — was unaware that a cross was placed above her brother’s grave and I’m sure it would have been her wish to travel to Brittany American Cemetery in France to see it replaced with a Star of David.
Fortunately, a group called Operation Benjamin offered to help facilitate a request to change my uncle’s headstone over to the proper burial symbol. The group is named for the first Gold Star soldier it helped in 2018.
With their assistance and after years of paperwork and research, my sister, my son and I traveled to Brittany and watched as workers from the cemetery changed over Uncle Sy’s headstone to a Jewish Star, the symbol of our ancestors since the time of Solomon’s temple.
We finally had the chance to say goodbye to Uncle Sy after all these years.
My entire family remains eternally grateful that now — and for the rest of time — Uncle Sy’s grave will be marked by a Star of David. His spirit should be secure in the knowledge that on Memorial Day, Independence Day, D-Day — and every day — the United States will honor his sacrifice and respect his ancestry and beliefs.
As we celebrate our nation’s independence, I invite you to join me in remembering that we each owe Uncle Sy, and all Americans who have given their life in defense of the country, a debt that can never be repaid, only honored.
Gail Findley lives in Las Vegas.
