New York Will Remove Broadway Plaque Honoring Nazi Collaborator Marshal Petain
Image by Danielle Ziri / The Jerusalem Post
By Josh Nathan-Kazis August 22, 2017
New York City plans to remove a plaque along Broadway honoring Marshal Philippe Pétain, an early leader of Vichy France, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced.
The plaque commemorates a ticker-tape parade held for Pétain in the 1930s, when he was known as a hero of the First World War. In 1940, Petain became leader of the Vichy government, controlling the portions of France not under direct Nazi occupation while collaborating with the Nazi regime and undertaking Nazi-style persecutions of Jews.
New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind called for the plaque’s removal in the spring.
De Blasio said that the removal of the Petain plaque was part of a “review of all symbols of hate on city property” undertaken after last week’s neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Petain plaque is one of 200 similar plaques embedded along lower Broadway, each commemorating a ticker-tape parade. Other honorees include Pierre Laval, Petain’s successor as leader of Vichy France and an even more willing collaborator with the Nazis, and Dino Grandi, an Italian Fascist who served in the Mussolini government.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Dive In
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Fast Forward Sotheby’s to auction earliest known kiddush cup
-
Fast Forward Jerusalem Post editor Zvika Klein, arrested in ‘Qatar-gate,’ says he’s being unfairly prosecuted for his reporting
-
Fast Forward Trump fires national security officials, reportedly at urging of Laura Loomer, far-right Jewish ‘Islamophobe’
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Fast Forward Sotheby’s to auction earliest known kiddush cup
-
Opinion Trump’s new tariffs on Israel are a BDS dream come true
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.