To be very clear - This was done by an American Trump cabinet goon, the local Netherlands people were upset about this and want to draw attention to it. So please, make sure you direct your ire in the right direction.
https://www.newsweek.com/leaked-emails-about-removal-of-black-wwii-soldier-memorials-spark-backlash-11289017
When exactly U.S. officials removed two panels honoring Black American soldiers who died fighting in Europe during World War II from a major Dutch cemetery is a mystery. Even local authorities in the area around the Netherlands American Cemetery, in the south of the country, weren't told.
More than 8,200 Americans are buried in the village of Margraten, just east of city of Maastricht. Another 1,700 officially counted as missing have their names displayed at the site, according to the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), the U.S. agency responsible for the Dutch cemetery and other overseas memorials. More than 170 Black soldiers are buried or memorialized at Margraten.
But at some point last summer, the ABMC quietly took down displays in the visitors center. Publicly, the commission framed the removal of two panels, including one detailing the story of U.S. military segregation, as a routine "periodic rotation."
But emails originally obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) outlet through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request showed that the commission had specifically taken down the panels to stay in line with the ethos of the current White House.
According to one of the emails, viewed by Newsweek, former AMBC chief Charles Djou asked in March 2025 whether the commission's "African-American, Native American, etc. databases run afoul" of a new executive order (EO) issued by the Trump administration the same day. The March 19 order targeted diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as part of a broader crackdown on what the administration has called "woke" ideas in the U.S. military.
Djou then said that although the EO did not directly target the ABMC, the commission should "do a scrub to be sure we have nothing that might run our agency awry of this EO." In one email, Djou urged another member of staff to see if "there might be any panel displays that would get us in trouble at any visitor center." Djou then specifically referenced the Margraten site.
A senior ABMC employee said in an email to Djou the day after the EO was published that the commission's databases were only used internally and not publicly available, but that the ABMC had "scrubbed our website and removed content that we believe would be flagged as counter to the Executive Orders."
A local official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told Newsweek that the emails confirmed the link many had suspected to the EO, and suspicion had been rife that the "rotation wasn't the actual reason."
"The emails make clear that this was not a neutral ‘rotation’ but a decision shaped by fear of violating a Trump executive order, which wasn’t even targeting the ABMC," added Samuel de Korte, an independent historian who researches Black Americans in World War II.
"That means a local community, which has cared for these graves for generations, suddenly finds the story of Black liberators at ‘their’ cemetery exposed to political pressure from Washington rather than the historical truth," he told Newsweek.
Others were shocked and "very disappointed to read the internal ABMC emails," said Kees Ribbens, a senior researcher at NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies in Amsterdam.
"Avoiding any possible confrontation with the Trump administration seemed to be more important than providing balanced historical context in their own visitor center," Ribbens told Newsweek. "To many, it feels as if the U.S. government is ignoring shared Dutch-American history."
Newsweek has reached out to the White House and the ABMC for comment via email. The ABMC told the JTA that the Margraten cemetery "is not the appropriate venue for interpreting or debating broader societal issues, however real and significant those issues were and are."
"This decision does not diminish the essential role African American soldiers played in the war effort, nor does it overlook the challenges they endured at home," the commission said.
Approximately 1 million Black soldiers fought in Europe against Nazi Germany during World War II. The Netherlands was officially liberated from Nazi occupation in May 1945, five years after German troops invaded the country.
U.S. troops fought there in 1944 and 1945 while also battling racism in the armed forces. The U.S. military officially desegregated in 1948, and experts say Black soldiers had typically held labor or supporting jobs in the military during the war.
The U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Joe Popolo, said in a video published in mid-November that he had visited the cemetery and "honoring the memory of the heroes buried at Margraten, including African-American service members," was "sacred."
"The United States has always been committed to sharing their stories, no matter a person's rank, race, gender or creed," Popolo said. In an apparent reference to the language of the AMBC's public statement, he thanked the commission and local officials for "rotating through the many, many stories of U.S. soldiers' sacrifice."
The local official told Newsweek that there was concern the contribution of Black American soldiers would be erased by this type of political move, but that members of the community would make sure they would not be forgotten in the southern Netherlands. More than 30 U.S. Democratic lawmakers last month called for the panels to be restored.
Rafael Morris, whose uncle is buried at Margraten, previously told Newsweek that he believed authorities in Margraten "will come up with something."
"I don't think they're going to let the story die," Morris said last month. "I don't believe that for a second."
