Centenary service for reburied Jewish Digger
Jewish military history enthusiasts are encouraged to attend a free centenary memorial service at Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery on Sunday, October 30 – presented by Operation Jacob – for a Jewish Digger whose story has remained largely under the radar.
“It is such a unique situation to be able to commemorate the grave of Captain Norman Packer, who died on active service exactly 100 years ago, and was one of only three Australian servicemen whose body was returned to Australia for re-burial prior to World War II,” Operation Jacob coordinator Peter Allen said.
“The chance to do this had to be taken, and it’s wonderful that Rabbi Benjamin Elton from The Great Synagogue – where Captain Packer had his bar mitzvah in 1904 – has agreed to lead the service.”
Captain Packer was one of 100 young Australasian doctors recruited by the British Army in 1915 to serve in the Western Front. The group became known as ‘Kitchener’s 100’.
After the Great War, on October 26 in 1922, he died, aged 31, on active service in the occupying force of the British Army of the Rhine, near Cologne.
Captain Packer rode bareback at pace in the direction of an injured man, in order to render him first aid, but fell off and cracked his skull, later dying in hospital.
The service will feature a horse with a saddle but no rider, with a pair of boots set backwards in its stirrups, as a symbolic tribute organised by a relative of Packer, Lew McDonnell, and the Australian Federation Troop.
It will also include the consecration of the grave of Boer War veteran, Trooper Benjamin Henry Braun, 94 years after his death.
Braun served with the 1st NSW Mounted Rifles in South Africa from 1899, he was captured in early 1900 by the Boers, and later released.
He returned to Australia, then re-enlisted to serve with the 3rd NSW Imperial Bushmen.
Braun held the Queens and Kings Medals, with five bars for his service in South Africa, and attended the Coronation of King Edward VII in London in August 1902.
After his death in 1928, he was buried in an unmarked grave, until his story was discovered in 2016, and a headstone was made.
A tour of Rookwood’s Jewish section will follow the service.
The service will start at 11.30am on Sunday, October 30, at Rookwood Cemetery’s Jewish Zone G, Section 5, Plot 265, via Necropolis Drive.
It is advised to arrive 15 minutes early. No booking is required.
comments