Two information plaques, one of them on racial segregation, that honored the memory of the black soldiers who contributed to the liberation of the Netherlands during World War II have been removed by the United States from the Margraten military cemetery, located in the south of the Dutch territory, where almost 200 of those soldiers lie. The American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), responsible for the site, has justified it by pointing out that one of the panels will be displayed in other military cemeteries in the United States—there are 26 along with 31 monuments and tombstones—spread across 17 countries. Another poster, the one that explained segregation in the US army during that war, has been removed from that rotation, after that commission considered that the information it contained was “interpretive,” the ABMC says in an email to this newspaper.
Local authorities fear, however, that the measure responds to the White House’s campaign against diversity, equality and inclusion, and ask that the panels be replaced. The plaques were in the Margraten Visitor Center where the story of fallen soldiers is told, and the first remembered George H. Pruitt, who died in 1945, at age 23, while trying to rescue a comrade in a river in Germany. The second explained the segregation policy that prevailed in the US Army until its abolition in 1948.
Because of this, and despite the fact that a million enlisted, black soldiers usually performed support jobs, or, as in that cemetery, as gravediggers for their comrades. Most of the time they received mutilated bodies and operated in terrible conditions of cold, rain and mud.
This second plaque included words from Private Jefferson Wiggins, who served in the fall of 1944 as a first sergeant in the 960th Quartermaster Company. He said that his black companions “were crying and were traumatized” digging the graves. In 1945 he was commissioned as a first lieutenant and became one of the first black officers in the United States Army.
In its response email to this newspaper’s questions, the ABMC confirms the withdrawal of that panel on racism in the following terms: “Based on an internal review of the interpretive content carried out by the previous secretary of the ABMC, the agency withdrew in March a single panel that showed a quote from First Lieutenant Jefferson Wiggins, an African-American soldier who survived the war.”
The US commission states in its message to EL PAÍS that the Margraten Visitor Center “has 15 magnetic panels on military, designed to be removed and rotate throughout the exhibition.” In this way, he continues, “as many individual stories as possible are highlighted.” Four of those plaques, the message continues, “depict African American servicemen buried in the cemetery, and the one dedicated to Technician Fourth Class George H. Pruitt is not on display, although it remains part” of the rotating exhibit on fallen American servicemen.
Programs aimed at diversity and equality in the United States have suffered major cuts by President Donald Trump, and the trend has reached the Pentagon and the Army. The decrees affected federal agencies and departments, but also the public procurement of companies that contemplated inclusive criteria.
Shock in the country
Dutch historian Kees Ribbens is not convinced by the United States’ explanations. On the contrary, it seems that for the current US Administration of President Donald Trump, “the memory of racial segregation may not be welcome.” It would be bad, in his opinion, “for Trump to want to rewrite the history of the Second World War, because this is also European,” he says, in a telephone conversation. Senior researcher at the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (NIOD), Ribbens emphasizes that the residents of the cemetery and nearby towns do not only bring flowers to the graves. Since 1945, many families have adopted them and ensure that they are in perfect condition in gratitude for the liberation of the country. Because of this, the cemetery and the deceased soldiers are naturally part of the social fabric, and the removal of the panels has caused commotion. The same expert indicates that what happened may be an attempt – from the United States – to present history in an “uncritical way that perhaps they can consider does not divide.” But if so, this “would not contribute to improving our understanding of a complex and dark past,” he asserts.
Opened in December 2023, the Visitor Center initially projected a film where black soldiers only appeared for a moment while digging graves. However, there was no mention that they built the Margraten cemetery or how they were treated due to segregation. The then United States ambassador to the Netherlands, Shefali Razdan Duggal – during the mandate of President Joe Biden – was informed of the situation, and in 2024 the ABMC added information that reflected the work of these soldiers.
This Monday, Alain Krijnen, mayor of Eijsden-Margraten, the municipality that includes the cemetery, sent a note to the ABMC asking it to reconsider the removal of the panels, and to pay “permanent attention to the stories of African-American soldiers.” He also hopes to meet with the new American ambassador, Joseph Popolo, to discuss the case. For their part, eleven of the provincial parties have described the situation as “indecent and unacceptable,” and are raising the possibility of erecting a memorial to the black soldiers outside the cemetery.
Created in 1944, the Margraten Cemetery was later transferred on perpetual loan to the United States Government, which administers it. Some 8,300 American soldiers who fell during the liberation of the southeastern Netherlands are buried there. The names of another 1,722, officially considered missing, are also displayed at the site, according to the ABMC. Among those troops were 174 African-American soldiers, according to data from the Dutch Black Liberators research project. The Dutch newspaper NRC has warned that the two plates had to be set aside without publicity a few months ago. The Netherlands remained occupied throughout the war and was completely liberated on May 5, 1945. That day is a national holiday in the country.
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