Jews on the Somme

by Roz Currie, former Military Collections Curator

Today marks 100 years since the Battle of the Somme
began on the 1 July 1916. One of the largest and bloodiest battles
of the First World War, an estimated one million men were killed or wounded. 

The British intended to attack and take control of a 24 mile stretch of the
River Somme but by 18 November when the battle ended largely as
heavy rain made more fighting too difficult they had only advanced about 8km.
Almost 60,000 British soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner on the
first day of fighting.

A Jewish Military Museum volunteer, Lola Fraser has been
doing intensive research work on the British Jewry Book of Honour, the Jewish
roll of honour compiled by the Reverend Michael Adler post-war. 

She found that
35 Jewish men are listed as having died on 1 July 1916, the
first day of the Somme, although some may have died elsewhere. All came from
England, 26 from London, four from Manchester, two from Liverpool, and
one each from Birmingham, Leeds and Harrogate. 

One of these was 2nd Lieutenant
Michael Graham Klean who was 38 when he died, and unmarried; one of his sisters
applied for his medals after the war. Another, 2nd Lieutenant Joseph Josephs,
was given a grave stone and yet the report for the grave reads, ‘believed to be
J. Josephs’, raising the never to be answered question, if it isn’t Lieutenant
Joseph buried there, who is it and where is he?

Trench Warfare

The reality
of trench warfare varied between intense action and extreme boredom. A general
pattern was to spend four days in the front line, then four days in close reserve and
finally four at rest. 

In close reserve, men had to be ready to reinforce the line
at very short notice. They may have been in a trench system just behind the
front system or in the shelter of a ruined village or wood. The relief of a unit after its time
in the front by a fresh one was always an anxious time, as the noise and
obvious activity increased the risk of attracting enemy attention in the form
of shelling, machine-gun fire or even a raid at the very time when the manning of
the position was changing. 

Once the incoming unit had relieved the outgoing
one, various precautionary actions would be taken. At least one man in four (at
night, and perhaps one in ten by day) were posted as sentries on look-out duty,
often in saps dug a little way ahead of the main fire trench. They would listen
for sounds that might indicate enemy activity, and try to observe such activity
across no man’s land. 

The other men would be posted into the fire trench or
support trench, in sections. Unless they were a specialist such as a signaller
or machine-gunner, men would inevitably be assigned to carrying, repair or
digging parties, or sent under cover of dark to put out or repair barbed wire
defences.

Other than
when a major action was underway, trench life was usually very tedious and hard
physical work. Trench life was however always one of considerable squalor, with
so many men living in a very constrained space.

Scraps of discarded food, empty
tins and other waste, the nearby presence of the latrine, the general dirt of
living half underground and being unable to wash or change for days or weeks at
a time created conditions of severe health risk (and that is not counting the
military risks). Vermin including rats and lice were very numerous; disease was
spread both by them, and by the maggots and flies that thrived on the nearby
remains of decomposing human and animal corpses.

Missing In Action

A series of letters in the Jewish Military Museum collection tells the story of Aaron Melnick’s search for his brother. Jack Melnick
went missing on the Somme on 9 September 1916.

The Melnick family came to England in 1894 from Eastern
Europe and Jack became a British citizen in 1906, working at a travelling penny
bazaar. After moving to East London, Jack married Matilda Posener, and they had
a daughter Eva in 1912. 

When Jack’s wife died of TB in 1915, Jack joined the
army and told his brother he did not intend returning. He was a private in the
1/12th Rangers Battalion, the London Regiment.

After his disappearance Jack’s brother was desperate to find
out what had happened to him. He wrote to the Red Cross, Salvation Army and
many other organisations. Jack’s body was never found.

A Jewish Burial

Jewish families could ask for a Star of David to be put on
their gravestone, rather than the more usual cross. Families were also offered the opportunity of
inscribing a personal memorial to their loved ones. So Mrs Litten wrote, “All
you had hoped for, all you had you gave, for the good of mankind” on the stone
of her son 2nd Lieutenant Raymond Litten.

Lola was fascinated by the stories of individuals but found the
enormity of the destruction overwhelming. She writes, ‘while researching 2nd
Lieutenant Wilfred Kohn I found the war diaries of the 11th East Lancashire
Regiment in which he was serving. The
diary is timed and at 1am on 2 July is written the list of casualties
for the previous day. “Officers: killed 7 (of which Wilfred was one), missing
1, wounded 13 including the Commanding Officer.
Other ranks: missing 140, wounded 338, killed 86”.