Jewish Soldier Becomes a Protestant

[Allan H.]

I've been going through some of the large accumulation of dog tags that I have acquired in over 40 years of collecting militaria. One of the more interesting pairs of tags that I have picked up were those that once belonged to Bernard Kazdoy who was from San Antonio, Texas. As you look at the tags, there doesn't appear to be anything special about them. They look like millions of other tags. What I found fascinating was that his religion is listed as a "P" for Protestant. The reality is that Bernard Kazdoy was Jewish, and his tags should have had an "H" for Hebrew. Obviously, the army was concerned about sending soldiers of the Jewish faith to the ETO, so they changed the religion to one that they hoped would go unnoticed by the Germans should the soldier be captured.

 

Kazdoy is one of those records that I could not find in NARA. Although there are over 9,000,000 records on the site, there are always some that just don't come up when you search the registry.

 

I thought the forum would find these tags interesting.

 

Allan

[hardheaded]

They are interesting. NARA 38382342-BRYANT#SIDNEY#H#########

 

HH

[Allan H.]

Kazdoy's service number is 38362342.

 

Allan

[zsmith]

I don't think the 4th digit is '8'. Looks like a '5' to me.

 

Interesting tags. I found him on FindAGrave and he's buried in a Jewish cemetery... definitely not a Protestant.

[bellasilva]

Nice set of tags, not unheard of for a different religion to be stamped for obvious reasons. I own two, one J, and one H, that were not changed, but this is the first example I've ever seen. Very cool

[crotalus358]

Second that on Bellasilva's comments.

 

I have only one H-stamped tag set. Interestingly enough, that soldier was deployed to the Pacific as a combat medic.

[hardheaded]

Kazdoy's service number is 38362342.

 

Allan

 

If you don't have it in hand.... anyhow...

 

Bernard (Berala) Shelton Kazdoy

Birth: January 11, 1919

Death: February 17, 1993

 

HH

 

[stratasfan]

Very interesting! Never thought about this, but I could see how they would change that for ETO service. Don't know if you have these, but here is a little article and his birth record. An interesting note . . . his wife was a Catholic, and is buried in a Catholic cemetery. I thought it was the wrong one at first, but it was correct. Don't often find a Jewish and Catholic wedding. Very interesting set of tags!

 

 

 

 

 

 

[polecat]

Very neat. I wish I saw these before they were sold. I am totally out of WW2 collecting, but wanted these. Very awesome find.

Side note, one of my sets says I am a Jew, one says no preference. Not that I ever plan on being in a position to be put on Al Jazeera in orange, but would rather not have anything denoting that just in case.