Among Rabbi Binyamin Wagner's responsibilities as Chief Rabbi of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia is arranging Jewish burials for members of the local community. In that regard, the funeral he presided over last week was fairly typical.
What made it extraordinary was the identity of the deceased: The funeral was for a Russian soldier who had died more than eighty years ago during World War II, whose fate had remained unknown ever since. Recently, his remains were discovered at a site known to have been the center of intense wartime battle, allowing him at long last to receive a proper Jewish burial.
“We felt as though history itself had paused for a moment in order to return a person’s name, his dignity, and his rightful place beside his people,” Rabbi Wagner said after the ceremony.
Eighty-five years ago, Samuel Ilyich Shalit was drafted into the Soviet Army following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. He served as a platoon commander in the Red Army’s 144th Rifle Division.
The last anyone heard from Samuel was in 1942. That year, Soviet forces launched an offensive against German troops after their retreat from Moscow. The operation ended in a costly Soviet defeat, resulting in tens of thousands of dead and missing, including Shalit, who was officially listed as missing in action.
Despite years of effort, no trace of Shalit was found, and his family was not able to give him a proper Jewish burial. The trail had gone cold.
In 2007, family members submitted a Page of Testimony to Yad Vashem, Israel’s World Holocaust Remembrance Center, ensuring that his memory would at least be preserved for future generations, even if his final resting place remained unknown.
Recently, researchers conducted an archeological dig near the village of Nelyuchi in Russia’s Novgorod region, the site of intense fighting during the war. There, they uncovered human remains and, alongside them, a personal military identification medallion. It was Shalit.
The mystery had been solved.
Shalit’s remains were returned to his home region of Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, where Wagner and his wife, Dina, have served as co-directors of the local Chabad House and Jewish community for close to three decades.
Preserving the memory of those lost during the devastation of World War II has long been an important part of Rabbi Wagner’s work. When the community dedicated its new Jewish center and synagogue in Krasnoyarsk, a memorial honoring the victims of the Holocaust was established in the courtyard.
More recently, the memorial was expanded with a new section dedicated to the hundreds of Jews from the region who were drafted into the Soviet Army during World War II. The addition was unveiled last year, when Krasnoyarsk hosted a gathering of Chabad rabbis from across Russia.
It was therefore natural that when a Jewish soldier missing since World War II was finally identified and returned home for burial, Rabbi Wagner was called upon to officiate.
Two of Shalit’s great-nephews joined representatives of the Krasnoyarsk Central District administration, the military registration and enlistment office, search teams that had helped locate his remains, and members of the local Jewish community for an official farewell ceremony at the Eternal Flame memorial in Krasnoyarsk. There, Shalit was honored with a formal military tribute in recognition of his service and sacrifice.
The funeral procession continued to the Jewish cemetery, where, in accordance with Jewish tradition, the rabbi recited the memorial prayers and Kaddish.
“It was an extraordinarily powerful and moving moment,” Rabbi Wagner said after the ceremony. “After 84 years of uncertainty and pain, Samuel’s long journey has come to an end, and he has merited a Jewish burial. His courage will remain engraved in our hearts.”
Rabbi Wagner told Chabad.org that since the burial, several people from around the world have reached out, saying that they too are searching for relatives who were killed during the war and whose burial places were never found.
“It’s a major challenge,” he said, “but it is a natural extension of our work and mission here in Siberia—not only to serve the Jewish community of today, but also to remember and honor those who lived here before us and gave their lives in the struggle against humanity’s greatest forces of evil.”
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