Plaques commemorating African American soldiers fighting against Nazi Germany in Europe have been removed from a U.S. military cemetery in the Netherlands.
The news originated from a report in a Dutch media outlet, NRC. It stated that two panels at the American Cemetery in Margraten, a village in the Limburg province of the Netherlands, had gone missing from the cemetery’s visitors’ center. The panels reportedly informed visitors about the role of African-American soldiers in World War II.
NRC also said that the black American soldiers (that were removed) had fought on two fronts: against Nazi occupation and racism.
One of them honours the one million black servicemen who fought in Europe during the Second World War, many doing menial tasks such as grave digging in the segregated US army.
The other tells the story of Private George H Pruitt, a 23-year-old soldier who drowned in June 1945 – a month after the war ended – while laying a telephone line across a river near Bremen, Germany, during the reconstruction.
The date of removal is uncertain, as the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) did not confirm that detail. Though NRC reported that the visitor center removed the panels “sometime this year,” meaning 2025.
Outrage ensues
Widespread outrage ensued after the news circulated earlier this week. The Facebook page Occupy Democrats wrote, “BREAKING: The Trump regime has removed a memorial honoring fallen Black soldiers who helped liberate Europe in WWII!”
The post received nearly 16k comments with users disappointed but still hopeful. A facebook user commented, “Once a real president is elected that person will undo it and return the memorial.”
The news also garnered thousands of views on X. One user wrote under the post, “Never fight for a nation/peoples that enslaved you.” Another added, “Simply disgusting. An act of pure racism, literally white washing.”
Trump DEI
The outlet suggested the removal could be connected to U.S Donald Trump’s policies targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The panels were added after the Biden-appointed ambassador to the Netherlands, Shefali Razdan Duggal, and a spokesman for the ABMC raised the issue.
Kees Ribbens, senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust, and Genocide Studies said the removal of the plaques was consistent with the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate DEI (diversity, equality and inclusion) programs.
“When I first went to the visitor centre in December 2023 I was surprised to see there was no mention of the black soldiers at all, even though there’s been a lot of focus on their role in the last 15 years,” Ribbens told Dutch News.
“It’s theoretically possible that they’re a rotating feature of the exhibition, but I haven’t heard any other examples of elements being replaced in the same way since the visitor centre opened. Why have they explicitly chosen these two panels about black soldiers?”