They Fought for South Africa

BACKGROUND

This is a list of some of the Jewish soldiers and servicemen and women that served with the military forces of South Africa during the Second World War.� The names were recorded in a pamphlet written by F/Sgt J.Sack in June, 1945 entitled "They Fought for South Africa.". The names of the servicemen were grouped by category which included:

• Accidentally Injured
• Air Force Cross
• British Empire Medal
• Commendation Military
• Distinguished Conduct Medal
• Distinguished Flying Cross
• Gazetted for Valuable Services Rendered in the War
• Member of Order of British Empire
• Mentioned in Despatches
• Military Cross
• Military Medal
• Missing, Presumed Dead
• Officer of British Empire
• Purple Heart
• South African Jews Who Have Died on Active Service
• Wounded or Injured

DATABASE

This database includes data on 830 Jews from South Africa mentioned in the pamphlet "They Fought for South Africa", who served the military and fought in the Second World War.

The fields in the database are:

• Wartime Military Service Category (the sixteen categories noted above)
• Surname
• Given Name
• Rank
• Comments (Such as military unit, POW status etc. with notes about some individuals)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The information contained in this database was extracted and transcribed by Laurie Margolies.� It was all based on the information in the pamphlet "They Fought for South Africa" , a digital copy of which was donated to JewishGen by Dr Jeremy Hodes.

March 2025