STUTTGART ARMY AIRFIELD, Germany —- A survivor of seven Nazi labor and concentration camps made good on a promise he made years ago to fellow prisoners when he gave the closing prayer at a Holocaust mass grave here April 15.

Benjamin Gelhorn, 86, said he was the “most happiest man” to give the Kaddish prayer at the placement of gravestones ceremony for 34 Jewish victims at the former World War II forced labor camp known as KZ (concentration camp) Echterdingen...

The 86-year old, who received his “142906” tattoo at the Auschwitz camp in Poland, said there was a pact among the laborers that if one of them was alive they would give the final prayer at “the real funeral.”

The remains of 34 Jewish forced laborers were discovered on the U.S. airfield in September 2005 during a construction project to upgrade the access control point. The remains were re-interred Dec. 15, 2005, during a ceremony attended by Rabbis from many countries, including Israel. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoa, the gravestones of the unidentified victims were dedicated according to Jewish tradition.

In all, 211 Jewish prisoners died at this camp during the winter of 1944 to 1945.

The solemn ceremony concluded as more than 200 mourners participated in the Jewish tradition of placing stones on the gravestones. Gelhorn, who spent three months at the KZ Echterdingen camp in 1939, placed a stone from the former Buchenwald Concentration Camp in east-central Germany, where he was liberated by U.S. forces in April 1945.
The ceremony was arranged by the Israelite Religious Community of Württemberg (IRCW) and supported by the State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg and the Filderstadt and Leinfelden-Echterdingen communities.

Unveiled to the public for the first time, each grave marker features the Star of David on top and a Hebrew inscription on the bottom. The middle of the gravestones is blank, because the identities of these victims are unknown.