@mekkaokereke

Apparently this was done by the US without notifying officials in the Netherlands. It's clearly part of the attack on DEI initiated by Trump. No doubt the fact that Biden had them installed in 2024 added an element of revenge.

https://factually.co/fact-checks/military/us-memorial-black-soldiers-removed-netherlands-cemetery-606547

@mekkaokereke Even when force is used, you can always refuse. They did it because they wanted to. What power does Dozy dementia Don have over them?

@mekkaokereke

Actually, the American cemetery in the Netherlands is operated by a US entity. The US entity took down the rotating display honoring Black veterans who both built the cemetery and fought bravely in WWII.

@mekkaokereke
I was wondering how the Americans could force the Dutch to do anything like this. Sounds like an American did it and the Dutch want it reversed.

"two panels highlighting the role of Black American liberators in World War II had been removed by the cemetery’s American administrator.

https://nltimes.nl/2025/11/10/limburg-demands-answers-us-whitewashing-black-history-wwii-cemetery

@mekkaokereke

Just recently heard a radio program about a Dutch town that searched for the history of indigenous soldiers from Canada buried over there, and then built a memorial exhibit honouring and teaching about their involvement in the war.

Now the exhibit will travel to Canada, because we shamefully need others to teach us our own erased history.

@mekkaokereke @nflux Just double checked and although it doesn’t change that they are indeed removed, please correct the statement that the Dutch would have done so, as they haven’t. Inquiries are ongoing of how they have been removed and when, Americans in charge of maintaining the graveyard have likely removed them by executive order from the US.

@mekkaokereke The kleptocratic powermongers who have managed to seize control of our government are despicable people, every one of them.

@mekkaokereke
RE
The 761st Tank Battalion was an all Black tank unit that served with distinction as part of Pattons 3rd army

Speaking of "served with distinction"

#BarackObama greets #HonorFlight #veterans in surprise visit during their DC trip, ‘Tears in my eyes’

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/barack-obama-greets-honor-flight-veterans-in-surprise-visit-during-their-dc-trip-tears-in-my-eyes/ar-AA1QfeVs

@SharonCrockett
Thx 4 orig mekka boost

@mekkaokereke
RE
But they weren't immortal...they were just brave. Many Black soldiers died freeing Europe from the nazis. Europeans were grateful. #Racist Americans? Not so much

This is why the US #4thestate #thepress etc can help to expose, that #racism is a bad thing

The #WW2 Black Panther tank division, is like the _reverse_ newspapers slogan,
⭕If it leads, it bleeds

https://www.sundaytimes.lk/240804/sunday-times-2/if-it-bleeds-it-leads-the-staple-of-tabloid-journalism-565927.html

@mekkaokereke F*%ck that, valour has no expiry date. ⚔️

@mekkaokereke Erase those soldiers from memory is pure EVIL, in capitals.

Period.

@mekkaokereke I am forever grateful for that they kicked my grandfathers' asses so that I, a white German, doesn't have to follow the same death cult ideology that my ancestors did. Danke ❤ I did not know about this incident. Can you tell me where in de Netherlands the memorial was? Link a source?

@mekkaokereke thank you for letting us know about this!

@mekkaokereke

Once again reminded of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bamber_Bridge

@mekkaokereke I just watched a great movie called The Key with William Holden and Sophia Loren. Holden plays an American (who posed as Canadian) Captain of an English Rescue Tug tasked with the dangerous task of rescuing convoys that got attacked by Nazi subs.

At one point in the movie, after much tribulation, Holden says to Loren "Everything's going to be all right, America's coming into the war." And she says "On which side?" To which Holden gives a wry look and says "Good question."

@mekkaokereke
Don't get philosophical here the Europeans, and especially the French literally had colonies in Africa at the time of WW2.

But yes, a couple years of living under the heels of Nazism cures most people from idiotic ideas like racism, not all, hardcore idiots stay idiots. But a surprising number of people who lived through the war in Europe become a bit of peace loving progressives.

@mekkaokereke french here 👋. Regarding France, and racism, and WW2, there is an horrifying event that came back in the news here recently. The Thyaroye massacre : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiaroye_massacre

Racism in France at the time was very, very real.

@mekkaokereke Not disagreeing with one word of your post. But, I feel the need to point out how France treated the Harki Muslim soldiers who protected France in WWII.

(see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harki)

And the SubSaharan soldiers that did the same:

(see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiaroye_massacre)

The USA does not have a monopoly on racism.

@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io From the reporting I've seen, the US removed the memorial and didn't tell the Dutch they were removing it. And the Dutch are kinda pissed about it.

@mekkaokereke the province of Limburg is trying to restore the memory of the black soldiers in the village near Margraven. All kinds of stories are more published in our newspapers...

@mekkaokereke @webhat fact check: true? How did the Dutch EVER cave to that??? @1sand0s ??

@mekkaokereke my father was a child in occupied Holland during WWII and I remember him saying the US black soldiers were the first black people he ever saw in his young life and they were revered by locals. They and the other liberating forces left a lasting impression on him.

He was quite shocked to the state of things when he grew up and immigrated to the US in the early 60s.

@mekkaokereke forced the Dutch to remove it? How?

@mekkaokereke I wish we were half as just and fair as you imagined us, but unfortunately we weren’t.

The French military ordered their (considerable) black colonial units to not go to the big Paris liberation parade either. I forgot where exactly, but there was an order that pretty much boiled down to „no colonial units north of this line on the map“.

You can hear more about it (and other parts of unequal treatment) in this 2.5 hours long radio show about forgotten colonial unit veterans of the allies in ww2
https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/lange-nacht-ueber-afrika-asien-und-ozeanien-im-2-weltkrieg-100.html

@mekkaokereke

I hope the Dutch just moved the memorial to another place, rather than take it down.

@mekkaokereke There's a call for a memorial next to the cemetary from the provincial council (though obviously not backed by the racist right-wing parties)

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/11/calls-for-permanent-memorial-in-limburg-to-black-us-liberators/

@mekkaokereke
I mostly have no fucks left to give, but I just found one in the back:

FUCK THOSE RACISTS.

@mekkaokereke as someone living in the Netherlands I didn't know, that's awful the government agreed to that

@mekkaokereke The French were indeed shocked by the overt racism of the Americans, but around the same time they massacred an unknown number (estimates up to 400) of their own Senegalese troops for refusing to disperse to their homes without the demobilisation pay to which they were entitled.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiaroye_massacre

Still being rehashed and reassessed in French political life: https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/patrimoine/histoire/au-senegal-des-archeologues-exhument-les-corps-du-cimetiere-de-thiaroye-pour-elucider-le-massacre-des-tirailleurs_7580245.html

@mekkaokereke every day, more and more reasons to hate this regime and the damage they are doing. 🤬

So of course, it is the same 761 unit that was among those prevented from celebrating the liberation of Paris that they were so instrumental in bringing about...

That was part of the force that liberated Netherlands, and whose dead are among those honored by the Dutch at the cemetery in Margraten.

Some things that are true:

* Black soldiers have served with distinction in every major US war

* Racist white people will always try to minimize the accomplishments of Black soldiers or erase them completely

"Double victory" describes Black soldiers' need to fight oppression abroad and at home
🙂🙃

This type of attempted racist erasure doesn't even make sense in the digital era.

There were over 1 million Black US soldiers who fought in WW2. You can buy as many Twitters and newspapers and TV stations and remove as many plaques as you like. You can't hide all those stories.