BY EMMANUEL OGBONNA
Visitors to a U.S. military cemetery in the southern Netherlands have been voicing growing anger and disbelief after two displays recognizing the role and sacrifices of Black American troops in World War II were quietly removed, prompting objections from local residents, Dutch officials and families connected to the fallen soldiers.
The panels were taken down earlier this year from the visitors center at the American Cemetery in Margraten, a sweeping site of white crosses and Stars of David where roughly 8,300 U.S. service members are buried. Nestled in rolling countryside near the borders with Belgium and Germany, the cemetery has long stood as a symbol of the Netherlands’ gratitude for the liberation from Nazi occupation.
The removal was carried out by the American Battle Monuments Commission, the U.S. government agency responsible for maintaining American military cemeteries overseas. No public explanation was initially offered, but the action followed a series of executive orders issued by U.S. President Donald Trump aimed at dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across federal institutions. In a speech to Congress in March, Trump declared that the country would no longer embrace what he described as “woke” policies.
Since the displays disappeared, visitors have repeatedly written messages of protest in the cemetery’s guestbook, criticizing what they see as an erasure of history and a slight against the Black soldiers who helped free Europe. The decision has also drawn criticism from Dutch political leaders and from residents who for generations have cared for the graves of American soldiers as a personal act of remembrance.
U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands Joe Popolo appeared to defend the removal in a message posted on social media after visiting the cemetery amid the controversy. He said the signs were not meant to promote narratives that, in his words, criticized the United States. Popolo later declined to comment further when asked about the decision.
The two removed panels focused on the experiences of Black Americans during the war. One told the story of George H. Pruitt, a 23-year-old Black soldier buried at Margraten who died in 1945 while trying to rescue a fellow serviceman from drowning. The other explained the system of racial segregation enforced by the U.S. military during World War II, even as American forces fought for freedom abroad.
About one million Black men and women served in the U.S. military during the war. Most were assigned to segregated units and often relegated to labor-intensive roles, though many also took part in combat. At Margraten, an all-Black unit was tasked with digging thousands of graves during the brutal winter of 1944–45, a period remembered in the Netherlands as the Hunger Winter, when famine gripped the German-occupied country.
Among those opposing the removal is Cor Linssen, 79, the son of a Black American soldier and a Dutch woman. Raised about 30 miles from the cemetery, Linssen said he always knew his father was a Black soldier, even though he only learned his identity later in life.
“When I was born, the nurse thought something was wrong because I was the wrong color,” Linssen recalled. “I was the only dark child at school.” Earlier this year, Linssen joined other children of Black American soldiers—now in their 70s and 80s—on a visit to the cemetery specifically to see the displays.
“They are an important part of history,” he said. “They should put the panels back.”
For months, the reasons behind the removal remained unclear. That changed recently when emails obtained through a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request were published by Dutch and international media outlets. The correspondence showed that the commission’s decision was directly linked to the administration’s policies on diversity and inclusion.
Neither the White House nor the American Battle Monuments Commission responded to questions about the emails. Previously, the commission said the panel addressing segregation did not fall within its commemorative mission, while the display about Pruitt had merely been “rotated” out. The replacement panel now highlights Leslie Loveland, a white soldier killed in Germany in 1945 and also buried at Margraten.
Theo Bovens, a Dutch senator and chair of the Black Liberators foundation, said his organization, which helped advocate for the inclusion of the panels in 2024, was not informed they would be removed. He called it puzzling that the commission would now claim the displays fell outside its mission after having approved them just a year earlier.
“Something has changed in the United States,” Bovens said.
Bovens is also among the thousands of local residents who participate in the long-standing Dutch tradition of adopting graves at Margraten. Families tend individual headstones, visiting them regularly, leaving flowers on birthdays and holidays, and passing the responsibility down through generations. There is a waiting list for those wishing to adopt one of the graves, underscoring the depth of local commitment to honoring the fallen.
Both the municipality of Eijsden-Margraten and the provincial government have formally called for the panels to be restored. In November, a Dutch television program recreated the displays and placed them outside the cemetery grounds, only for police to remove them shortly afterward. The program is now searching for a permanent location to exhibit them.
The Black Liberators foundation is also seeking to establish a lasting memorial in the Netherlands to honor Black American soldiers who died liberating the country. In America Square, outside the Eijsden-Margraten city hall, a small park already bears the name of Jefferson Wiggins, a Black soldier who arrived in the Netherlands at age 19 and helped dig many of the graves at Margraten.
In a memoir published after his death in 2014, Wiggins described the painful contradiction of burying white comrades with whom he was forbidden to socialize while alive because of segregation rules.
Historians note that many Black soldiers experienced Europe very differently from the United States during the war. “What they found were people who accepted them, welcomed them, and treated them as the heroes they were,” said author Linda Hervieux, whose book chronicles the experiences of Black troops on D-Day and the discrimination they faced back home. That welcome, she said, extended clearly to the Netherlands.
The removal of the panels, Hervieux added, fits into a broader historical pattern of sidelining the stories of Americans of color. “It’s another example of how those contributions are written out,” she said, “even when they are essential to understanding the full truth of history.”
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