US removal of panels honoring Black soldiers at WWII cemetery in the Netherlands draws backlash
MARGRATEN, Netherlands (AP) — A U.S. military cemetery in southern Netherlands has been in ruins since the removal of two paintings. black troops who helped liberate Europe Visitors from the Nazis filled the visitors’ book with objections.
Sometime in the spring, the American Battle Monuments Commission, the U.S. government agency responsible for maintaining memorial sites outside the United States, removed panels from the visitor center at the American Cemetery in Margraten, the final resting place of about 8,300 U.S. soldiers. It is located in the rolling hills near the border of Belgium and Germany.
This move came after US President Donald Trump. issued a series of executive orders ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs. “Our country will not wake up anymore,” Trump said in his speech to Congress in March.
The removal, which was carried out without public notice, angered Dutch officials, families of U.S. soldiers and local residents who honored the Americans’ sacrifice by maintaining the graves.
US Ambassador to the Netherlands Joe Popolo also appeared to support removing the screens. “The signs at Margraten are not intended to support an agenda critical of America,” he wrote on social media after visiting the cemetery after the controversy broke out. Popolo declined a request for comment.
Demonstrations highlighted the sacrifices of Black Americans
One exhibit tells the story of George H. Pruitt, a 23-year-old Black soldier buried in the cemetery who died trying to save a comrade from drowning in 1945. The other was describing the racial discrimination policy of the USA at that time. World War II.
The nearly 1 million Black soldiers who joined the U.S. military during the war served in separate units, performing mostly menial duties but also fighting in some combat missions. An all-black unit dug thousands of graves at Margraten during the brutal famine season of 1944-45 in German-occupied Netherlands. Hunger Winter.
Cor Linssen, the 79-year-old son of a black American soldier and a Dutch mother, is one of those who oppose the removal of the panels.
Linssen grew up about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the cemetery, and although she did not learn who her father was until later in life, she knew he was the son of a Black soldier.
“When I was born, the nurse thought there was something wrong with me because I was the wrong color,” he told the Associated Press. “I was the only brown kid in school.”
Linssen visited the cemetery in February 2025 to view the panels with a group of Black military children, now in their 70s and 80s.
“This is an important piece of history,” Linssen said. “They should put the panels back.”
Decision based on Trump’s DEI policies
After months of mystery surrounding the panels’ disappearance, two media outlets — the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) and online media Dutch News — this month released emails obtained through a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request showing that Trump’s DEI policies directly led the commission to remove the panels.
The White House did not respond to AP’s questions about the removed panels.
The American Battle Monuments Commission did not respond to AP questions about the disclosures. Previously, the ABMC told the AP that the panel discussing discrimination “does not fall within the scope of its commemorative mission.”
It was also said that the panel on Pruitt was “rotating.” The replacement panel features Leslie Loveland, a white soldier who was killed in Germany in 1945 and buried in Margraten.
Theo Bovens, a Dutch senator and president of the Black Liberators foundation, said his organization, which had been pushing for the panels to be included in the visitor center, was not informed that the panels were removed. He told the AP it was “odd” that the U.S. commission thought it was not their duty to place the panels in 2024.
“Something has changed in the United States,” he said.
Bovens, from the region around Margraten, is one of them. thousands of locals tend to the graves in the cemetery. Those who adopt the grave visit it regularly and leave flowers on the martyred soldier’s birthday and other holidays. Responsibility is often handed over to Dutch families, and there is a waiting list for claiming US soldiers’ graves.
Locals commemorate the sacrifices of Black soldiers
The city and district where the cemetery is located requested the return of the panels. In November, a Dutch television program recreated the panels and placed them outside the cemetery, and they were quickly removed by police. The show is now looking for a permanent home for them.
The Black Liberators are also trying to find a permanent location to erect a monument to the Black soldiers who gave their lives to save the Dutch.
On America’s Square, in front of the Eijsden-Margraten town hall, there is a small park named after Jefferson Wiggins, a 19-year-old black soldier who dug many graves in Margraten while serving in the Netherlands.
In his memoirs, published posthumously in 2014, he describes burying the bodies of white comrades with whom he was forbidden to associate while alive.
When black soldiers arrived in Europe in World War II, ”They encountered people who accepted them, welcomed them, treated them as the heroes they were. “And that includes the Netherlands,” said Linda Hervieux, whose book “Forgotten” chronicles the black soldiers who fought on D-Day and the discrimination they faced back home.
He said the removal of the panels “follows a historical pattern of the writing of the stories of black men and women in the United States.”
