Veterans Affairs removes headstones with swastikas at Texas cemetery
(JTA) — The Department of Veterans Affairs removed two gravestones bearing swastikas from a military cemetery in Texas.
With little fanfare, the VA removed the headstones on Monday morning from Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group that advocates for troops and veterans who report discrimination in the military, had launched a campaign for the removal of the headstones in May after a veteran of Jewish descent saw them.
The VA rejected initial calls to replace the headstones, saying it was not legally permitted to unilaterally remove or alter the headstones under the National Historic Preservation Act. But the agency soon changed course after congressional lawmakers stepped in, announcing in June that it would remove them without setting a date.
The San Antonio Express-News first reported the removal.
It’s not clear why just the two tombstones, among those of 132 Germans buried in the cemetery’s prisoner of war section, have the Nazi inscriptions. Both of the deceased died in 1943. The tombstones were marked with a swastika inside a German cross and are inscribed, “He died far from his home for the Führer, people, and fatherland.”
Another tombstone with a swastika at a military cemetery in Utah has yet to be removed.
There are an estimated 860 World War I- and II-era German POWs buried in 43 cemeteries across the United States.
The post Veterans Affairs removes headstones with swastikas at Texas cemetery appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30