When Canadian First World War soldier Pvt. Albert Detmold was killed by German shelling on Aug. 15, 1917, while digging communication trenches on the front lines in northern France, he could never have imagined that more than a century later, both a Chabad rabbi from Toronto and a Ukrainian Catholic priest from Saskatoon would preside over his formal military burial.
Detmold’s remains were discovered by construction workers in a field near the French city of Lens in the summer of 2020. They’d lain there for over 100 years, sharing the fate of many hundreds of his comrades who lost their lives in the Battle for Hill 70, after Vimy Ridge. While Detmold’s name was later engraved on the Vimy Ridge Memorial as missing with no known grave, in late 2025, DNA testing and historical sleuthing allowed Canada’s Department of National Defence to make a positive ID.
Arrangements were soon put in place to mount a formal reburial ceremony on July 9, in France, Detmold’s actual birth date.
He was born into a prominent European Jewish family before coming to Canada, so inquiries were made about the possibility of having a Star of David engraved on Detmold’s gravestone. But officials ultimately decided to bury him under a cross, as the soldier had enlisted as a Presbyterian.
Detmold’s great-niece, Liana Walters, of Tees, Alta., traveled to France to represent the family at the service, and told The CJN she “would have liked to have seen the Star of David on the tombstone as well.”
On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner speaks with chaplain Maj. (Rabbi) Arnold Noteh Glogauer, of Thornhill, Ont., who recently returned from officiating at the burial, and with Walters, the great-niece, about their surprisingly emotional farewell for the long-lost soldier.
Related stories
Read how Canada’s Department of National Defence Casualty Identification Program spent five years doing DNA testing and tracing Pvt. Detmold’s relatives, in The CJN.Watch our interview with the three Canadian experts who made the positive identification, on The CJN’s North Star podcast, on YouTube from April 2026.See the Canadian Armed Forces’ brief video of Detmold’s burial service.
The remains of Pte. Albert Detmold, 32, a British Jew who served with the Canadian Army in France during the First World War, were positively identified, thanks to DNA testing, forensic anthropology and years of research by the Canadian government. (Department of National Defence photo)Transcript
Maj. (Rabbi) Arnold Noteh Glogauer: After 109 years, Private Albert Henry Detmold is no longer among the missing. His name has found its resting place. We speak once more of the names that shaped his life: Frederick William and Nellie Rita, who gave him life; Violet, who shared his hopes for the future; and Albert himself, soldier, pioneer and son. May his memory be a blessing. May his sacrifice endure, and may he now rest in peace among his allies, honoured, remembered and home.
Ellin Bessner: A few weeks ago, on July 9, a long-lost First World War Canadian soldier who was born into a Jewish family but had no known grave finally received a formal military burial in France. A Canadian chaplain, Major Arnold Noteh Glogauer, a Chabad rabbi from Thornhill, flew over to France to officiate alongside a Ukrainian Catholic priest from Saskatoon. 109 years ago this week, on Aug. 15, 1917, Private Albert Henry Detmold was digging trenches on the front lines in northern France when he was killed by German shelling. Detmold’s remains lay beneath the historic battlefield near the city of Lens for more than a century until construction crews unearthed his skeleton in 2020 and also parts of his uniform.
That sent Canadian forensic experts on a mission to find out who he was. It took five years of research and searching for distant relatives down through the family tree. DNA testing confirmed his identity.
Detmold is the first missing Canadian Jewish First World War soldier ever positively identified since the Casualty Identification Division was created 20 years ago.
So why then was he buried with a cross on his tombstone?
Well, it’s complicated. Despite him coming from a prominent Anglo-Jewish family in London, born to Jewish parents, when Detmold enlisted in Manitoba in 1916, he put down Presbyterian.
And there are historic policies still in place about that faith symbol. His permanent headstone ultimately bears the cross, but the burial ceremony itself became something very different, a military farewell that also made room for his Jewish identity.
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: So after 109 years, this young Private Albert was waiting for a Kaddish.
Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Monday, Aug. 10, 2026.
Welcome to North Star, a podcast of The Canadian Jewish News and made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Gronovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
Private Detmold was one of about 27,000 Canadian military personnel still missing. And the Department of National Defence continues to try to identify them wherever and whenever war remains are found.
Detmold came to Western Canada as an 18-year-old together with his older brother. They became homesteaders. He settled near Roblin, Manitoba. Detmold was in the grain business. He had a fiancée back home named Violet. When the war broke out, he crossed the Atlantic Ocean again and served as a pioneer, basically a combat engineer who set up communication lines, dug trenches and laid railroads as the Canadians advanced northeast from Vimy Ridge.
Major Glogauer calls presiding over the burial “one of the most definitive moments of his military career”. And Detmold’s great-niece, Liana Walters, his brother’s granddaughter, also attended. We’ll hear from Walters a little later. But first, I’m joined from Ottawa by Major Arnold Noteh Glogauer.
Thank you so much for doing this and for helping him find his final resting place with the Jewish community as well as the wider community. Thank you for going.
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: Thank you so much, Ellin.
Ellin Bessner: I sort of helped. because I told you about it and you were like, “I’m down!” But let’s go back to how you found out about it and why you wanted to do it.
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: Right. So actually, and it’s true, you identified that here was this Jewish soldier whose remains had actually just been identified who was Jewish. And you said, at least you planted the nice little Jewish seed. Wouldn’t it be amazing if we actually had a rabbi there?
So that actually sparked a little bit of a fire here in the Canadian chaplaincy because I had incredible support from my chain of command all the way up to the head of the chaplaincy, which is the Chaplain Heneral who I’m her staff officer.
And the Chaplain General was extremely encouraging and pushed down to the Chief of Staff, Captain (Navy) Shaun Yaskiw, that we need to make sure that a rabbi is there. They called it “Operation Distinction”.
Ellin Bessner: But it wasn’t that straightforward to have the Jewish service and so that complicated things a little bit. Can you walk us through how you were still able to, or you wanted to still make sure that his Jewish origins were recognized in the final ceremonies?
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: Right. It’s a very complicated process because he attested as Protestant on his papers, automatically, and his actual remains belong at one moment because of where they were found on an international battlefield, even though it was in France, are kind of controlled by, it’s called the CWGC, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. So they’re the ones who kind of set the precedent of what really needs to happen. And they were the ones who said, okay, so he attested a Protestant, so he’s going to be buried as a Protestant. And that’s when the Canadian chaplaincy said, no, wait one second!
Because he actually was born Jewish, he has to have a Jewish burial.
Which was amazing because I actually just sat and watched a lot of this discussion going on. They wanted to have a mixed service to be able to recognize both faiths. And it was extremely important for me to make sure that every step of a Jewish funeral should be in place, which is the Kel Malei Rachamim, which is the memorial prayers, with Kaddish. And that’s where things started to really move.
I said, look, I’m going to France. I need to make sure that there’s a minyan because we know that a Jewish burial is a communal act. This young private Albert was not buried alone, but Jews from across France were going to be there and gather for somebody who they never knew, they never met, but a Jew deserved a Jewish burial.
And I didn’t even know that one of them was the French chaplain general, Jewish chaplain general, and I didn’t know until I actually arrived an hour before the ceremony at the cemetery if I was going to have a minyan or not.
And then I came around the corner and I saw Jewish families, husbands and wives pulling up in their cars and parking. And before I knew it, I was there and there were over 20 members of the Jewish community in northern France from everywhere.
Ellin Bessner: My “druthers” would have had a Magen David on his tombstone, but that didn’t happen. How come and what did you try to do?
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: So one of the most challenging parts is working through existing doctrine that is updated. So the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has doctrine that states: prior to 1971, whatever the attestation documents state, that determines the headstone.
So because he attested as Protestant, even though I tried to push as much as I could, that was out of my purview. And in the end, it would have been the only one who could actually overturn that would be the actual next of kin. So whoever that next of kin was engaging with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, those were the ones who would determine what was on the gravestone.
So I had no connection to be able to actually change that or influence that.
In the end, identity matters, right? If we acknowledge that someone who is Jewish in life as Albert Detmold was, then identity shouldn’t disappear in death. And because Albert served as a Canadian Jewish soldier deep down in his neshama, it was important that the burial reflect the true truth who he really was. So recognizing identity means more than just mentioning it, means honouring it, and the way we honoured it by just making sure that Kaddish, at least part of the burial, which would include covering the grave, we were able to be at least a small part.
We weren’t able to cover the entire grave because the Commonwealth War Graves Commission has certain procedures that have to be in place. So I did what we could.
Ellin Bessner: You had a shovel, you had some dirt.
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: I had some shovel, had some dirt. I had the sergeant major be part of it. But in the end, I’ll tell you one incredible thing. So I don’t feel that I have the greatest voice. And knowing that, you know, to be able to be at a funeral and to have a Kel Malei Rachamim, the memorial prayer that could pierce your heart, you know, in my mind I was thinking, how am I going to sing it?
And the chief chaplain of the chaplain general of France, he dispatched one of the Jewish French chaplains to be there five minutes before. And he’s standing there and I asked him, you know, in French, “Can you sing?” So he said yes. I said, because I can’t. So I said, okay, you will sing the Kel Malei. And then one of the other rabbis who was incredible, Rabbi Dahan of Lille of Northern France, you’ll say the Kaddish, so I don’t have to say Kaddish.
I was able to incorporate different people from the community. But when this French rabbi from Morocco sang the Kel Malei, the relatives, the great-niece of Albert Detmold, who actually was there, she said she started crying. She didn’t know why she was crying. So she started crying when she heard the memorial prayer.
So it was so impactful. Hearing the Kel Malei in the cemetery overlooking the battlefield where they found his remains, where he lost his life, in that moment, it ceased to become a recovery of a casualty, but again became the identification and the return of a Jewish son of Israel back to our people.
Ellin Bessner: What did you bring with you in order to be able to make this ceremony unique?
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: They allowed me to assemble those parts, and then we cut a corner from the tallit, so it’s not a complete tallit. And there’s certain other things that I was able to do that I won’t go into too much detail here. You know, we were able to put tachrichim, burial shrouds, which are handmade here in Ottawa.
Ellin Bessner: About 4,700 Canadians of Jewish faith were part of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War. And, you know, one thing that I’m sure our listeners are wondering is, if he was born Jewish, but he signed up as a Protestant, but he didn’t formally convert, or we don’t know, then why would he sign up as a Protestant? What sense do you have some of the reasons why that might be happening in those times for Jewish enlisted men?
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: So it’s a very good question and it’s, you’re right, we don’t know for sure. We don’t know for sure, but we do know that throughout our Canadian Armed Forces history, as well as in America, that Jews were always concerned about antisemitism, and wanting to serve our country. And there’s a lot in terms of why somebody would want to serve a country or their country, wherever they were, but at the same time want to fly below the radar.
So it was very clear a lot of Jews, and it happened it was very well documented, especially in the Second World War, that the easiest way to fly below the radar and not identify what your faith was to enrol or attest as Protestant. So Protestant was the go-to for many Jews.
So that was the understanding. From a very prominent Jewish family. There’s a lot of history about his family, where his parents were buried in the Jewish shul. So knowing that, the benefit of the doubt, you know, we always want to, when in doubt, we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
That was on my mind. And in the end, we know, at least from our faith, somebody that was born a Jew has every right to be able to deserve the dignity of being buried as a Jew.
Ellin Bessner: Now, Major Glogauer, you know, you have had a couple of weeks to sort of get over the jet lag and decompress. What image remains with you when you think about this from that whole day?
Arnold Noteh Glogauer: So there’s two things. The first one is we had an opportunity to be able to go to Vimy Ridge with the North Saskatchewan Regiment, where we all gathered at Vimy Ridge under Private Detmold’s name. And that attempt to be able to speak to them. And it was a voluntary vigil, they called it. And we didn’t know who was going to show up.
Before I knew it, we gathered there and every, almost every single one of the regiment, all of these young soldiers who were coming to be able to make sure that this soldier would be buried according to the dignity of a Canadian Jewish soldier. They were all there gathering underneath his name. So I explained to them, one thing is for sure, we all come from different parts. We’re different people, but when we put on the Canadian flag, we are all family. And the red, the Canadian flag, put it on our left side because it’s closest to our heart.
So for me to gather with these young soldiers and tell them, you’re going to take one thing back with you, and that’s to be a light. And that’s the goal for me. What is the message that I have is that the Canadian military says it speaks of like no soldier being left behind. But what I saw in France was the Jewish equivalent. When Albert’s identity became known, people crossed borders, languages, generations to ensure that he was remembered with dignity.
So I said it was not no soldier left behind, it was no soul left behind. And that’s the part that hit me the most. I think the inspiration that I’ve taken to know that, more than a century, Jewish people, we’ve not forgotten one of our own. That no matter what, wherever we go, it doesn’t matter, you know, what one’s observance level is, when needs a Jewish person, a Jewish member needs community, we will always be there for each other.
And that’s what I saw in France. And for me, that’s the inspiration that I know no matter what’s going on in the world, we are one family and Am Yisra’el Chai.
Liana Walters, (centre, holding wreath), with her children and guests attend her great-uncle Pvt. Albert Detmold’s reburial ceremony at Loos, near Lens, in northern France, on July 9, 2026. (Photo by Corporal Liam Stagg, Canadian Armed Forces Combat Camera)
Ellin Bessner: Coming up, why Albert Detmold’s great-niece wishes his gravestone had a Star of David.
Liana Walters’ grandfather was Albert Detmold’s brother Julius Frederick, who also served during the First World War before eventually settling in Alberta for good. The family was raised Christian. Liana and her husband are grain farmers today, as Albert had been before the war. She’d never heard of him until the Canadian government contacted the family when his remains were identified.
Now, after travelling to France for the burial, she says she feels connected to him in a deeply surprising way. She joins me from her home in Tees. It’s near Red Deer.
When the government told you that you had a match to this long-lost member of the family who was blown up and then, you know, they found his skeleton, did that come like a bolt out of the blue? Had anybody ever researched him or looked for him?
Liana Walters: We had never heard of him. It was totally out of the blue. We had no idea. I’d never even heard the man’s name before. So it was, you know, quite surprising to go, oh my gosh, there’s a lot more to our family history than we knew.
Ellin Bessner: And when they discovered that his mom was Jewish and his father was Jewish and he was born Jewish, how surprising was that?
Liana Walters: I had heard that there was Jewish in the family. My dad had said, yes, there was some Jewish in the family, but I didn’t know what the connection was, what level of the generations, what part of the family tree it was?
Ellin Bessner: Did that pose any challenge when the government said that he came from a Jewish family? Was that an awkward thing? How did you absorb all that?
Liana Walters: Oh, it was quite interesting. I actually worked for a Jewish dentist for part of my career whose father was a rabbi as well. And so the Jewish faith has always kind of intrigued me. It’s great. The family history is what it is and we need to embrace them.
Ellin Bessner: And so they get the DNA match, they figure it out, they make the announcement in the media. This is back in the spring. How did it happen that you went to France as the family? Did anyone else want to go?
Liana Walters: I am the youngest of all the cousins and all of the other ones either felt unable to travel or their spouse was unable to travel. It was just us. But right from the get-go, we also wanted our kids to come. We all were going regardless.
Ellin Bessner: But the, so the family knows, they knew he was lost in the war and that was it, right? You knew that since when?
Liana Walters: No, I did not know he was lost in the war. I did not even know of the man, period. So this is why it’s also, it was quite shocking to hear the whole story.
Ellin Bessner: They didn’t ask you what to write on the tombstone?
Liana Walters: Apparently they asked whatever cousin gave the DNA. They had the choice as to what went on the tombstone, which I was not consulted about. So they chose and it was fine.
Ellin Bessner: And you were holding the Canadian flag in your hand.
Liana Walters: They presented me the Canadian flag that was draped over his casket before they lowered it into the ground. I have it. I also was given his personal effects that they found on him. And then they presented me with the flag as well.
Ellin Bessner: Why did you want it? Why did you want to have that stuff?
Liana Walters: I didn’t ask for it. They presented it to me, but I am so, so honoured to have it. It just means so much when you think that they have gone to this much trouble to ensure that they found some remains and that they were identified and properly buried. And it’s just so touching. Oh, and they also gave me, he had a pocketknife with him as well.
And so I got to bring all of that stuff home. So it’s all rusty and, I mean, it’s 110 years old in the dirt. So that was pretty amazing.
Ellin Bessner: How does having this help connect you to him?
Liana Walters: Very much. It’s such a tactile link that you can, every time I look at it, I think of him, you know, wish you knew more about him, which I hope to learn. I hope to study and try and find some more information, but, yeah, it’s just such an amazing attachment to our past. It’s amazing for not having known the man.
It was such an emotional, such an emotional event. It was unbelievable.
Ellin Bessner: I want to ask you about having the Jewish service. When you learned to the extent to which Rabbi Major Glogauer went to get, it’s called a minyan, which is 10 men, I know that he and I would have preferred to have a Star of David on the tombstone, but at least that part of the heritage got equal time.
Liana Walters: Yes. And I would have liked to have seen the Star of David on the tombstone as well. But as I say, I was not consulted on that, didn’t know that was an option.
Ellin Bessner: So.
Liana Walters: That’s unfortunate
Ellin Bessner: Why would you want him to have that and not a cross since he attested as a Presbyterian?
Liana Walters: Well.
Ellin Bessner: I’m curious.
Liana Walters: If his mother was Jewish, why not? Like, you know, I’m sure she raised him Jewish and so, you know, I don’t know if you could have both on a headstone or not, but I’m very glad that the Jewish aspect was represented in the burial process for sure.
Ellin Bessner: I’d like to know what remains with you now, one sort of feeling or anecdote or something that was said that sticks in your mind now, as it’s a month since you were there, but that you still think about.
Liana Walters: It made me more proud to be a Canadian. And the military, I have so much more respect for the military since then. Well, I always have appreciated the military, but I have a lot more respect for what they do. And I just pray that we never have to go through anything like that again. And I think it’s important for all of the generations, all of the future generations to remember and not forget what happened.
Ponoka, which is another small town very close to us, their high school trips that the classes go on go to Vimy. The teacher there that heads up this high school trips, they do like a brass rubbing of the headstone and bring it back to the family. The teacher was there when we went to the burial. My daughter, long story short, again, she had a connection, heard about this guy, they told him about the funeral, the burial we were going to, and he showed up at the burial and actually made a brass rubbing of the new headstone after it was placed. And so now I need to touch base with him now that we’re back and contact him and, you know, talk to him about it.
And, yeah, if he wants me to come talk to the class, I’ll bring the flag, I’ll bring the personal items and, yeah, talk to the kids for sure. I think it’s such a cool project.
Ellin Bessner: It’s been really an honour to speak with you and hear all this amazing journey that you just recently went on. And thank you for sharing Albert’s and your family’s story with The Canadian Jewish News.
Liana Walters: Thank you so much, Ellin.
Ellin Bessner: Private Detmold is the first Canadian to be buried in the new part of the British cemetery in Loos near the Hill 70 Memorial. It just opened. There are now 14 graves in it, all British troops from the First World War. His gravestone epitaph reads, “May his soul and the souls of his comrades rest in peace.”
And that’s what Jewish Canada sounded like for this episode of North Star, made possible thanks to Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin’s Charitable Foundation. You can learn more about this story and watch the ceremony at the links in our show notes.
Thanks to Dr. Chaya Glogauer, who accompanied her husband to France and filmed the audio and the video of the burial service.
North Star was produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman and Izzie Helenchilde, with Michael Fraiman as our executive producer and Alicia Richler as the editorial director. Thanks for listening.
Credits
Host and writer: Ellin Bessner [email protected]Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Izzie Helenchilde (producer and video editor), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Alicia Richler (editorial director)Music: Bret Higgins
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