An American military cemetery in the Netherlands has reportedly removed a pair of display panels discussing the 174 Black soldiers buried at the site.
The Netherlands American Cemetery is the final resting place for 8,301 American soldiers who died fighting in World War II.
In 2023, the American Battle Monuments Commission opened a visitor center at the cemetery and added a pair of informational panels which recognized the Black American troops who were “fighting on two fronts” against both the Nazis in Europe and against segregation back in the U.S.
One of the panels included comments from Jefferson Wiggins, a WWII soldier who helped bury the bodies of slain servicemembers at the site.
On Monday, Bas Albersen, a spokesperson for the governor of Limburg, said the provincial government was going to make an “urgent appeal” asking the commission and the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands to return the panels to the visitor’s center, the Guardian reports.
“The displayed panels represented a history that we can never forget and from which we can learn, especially now that differences in the world are ever more magnified,” he said. “They fought for a freedom that they did not have themselves.”
The AMBC told CNN in a statement that the panels were removed after “an internal review of interpretive content” at the site. The commission noted that four other displays that highlight individual Black servicemembers are present at the visitors’ center.
The commission’s previous secretary, Biden-appointee Charles Djou, provided further context to the removal in a statement to CNN, saying the panels were taken down “via an internal agency review at the prompting of the Trump administration.”
The Independent has requested comment from the AMBC and the Department of Defense.
Relatives of the soldiers buried at the site — like Raphael Morris, nephew of WWII soldier Julius Morris — are frustrated by the removal of the plaque.
“It upsets me,” he told the outlet. “We’ve got all sorts of museums around the country honoring African Americans. And a lot of the displays have been taken down. I guess I didn’t realize that the cemetery there in Margraten could possibly be affected by the same virus that’s affecting the United States right now, with this current administration.”
There has been a push from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to review and remove images, books, and other information from the military that run afoul of the Trump administration’s hostility toward diversity and inclusion initiatives.
In March, the Associated Press obtained access to a database of more than 26,000 images posted by the military online that were flagged for removal under the Trump administration’s cultural purge.
Items flagged for removal include a slew of files that contained the word “gay,” which included references to the Enola Gay, the bomber used to drop the first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.
Several photos of an Army Corps of Engineers dredging project were also flagged for removal because one of the engineers on the site had the last name “Gay.”
The U.S. Air Force briefly removed training courses from its curriculum that included videos of the Tuskeegee Airmen — a famed all-Black aerial unit — while complying with the Trump administration’s cultural review guidelines. The White House complained that the removal was “malicious compliance” and the Air Force reversed its decision.
Earlier this year, the same Trump administration media review saw books on gender and race removed from the libraries of schools on military bases. A federal judge ordered the Department of War to return the books to five of the libraries ordered to remove them.
In August, President Donald Trump issued a statement on Truth Social complaining about the contents of exhibits at the Smithsonian museums, including items that focused on “how bad Slavery was.”
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Trump wrote.
