Veteran Affairs: Nazis 'don't have a place' next to fallen American heroes

"I was surprised, I hadn't heard about them," said Wilkie, when Elias asked the secretary what his initial thoughts were after hearing about the discovery.

JUNE 2, 2020 05:22

Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Washington (photo credit: REUTERS) — Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Washington

(photo credit: REUTERS)

Following the discovery of three German POW tombstones found in military cemeteries across the United States, inscribed with Nazi symbols and sentiments - two at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in Texas and one at Fort Douglas Post Cemetery in Utah - ABC News' Johnathan Elias decided to sit down with the Secretary of Veteran Affairs Robert Wilkie to discuss the matter.

According to ABC News, the secretary was notified of the existence of the tombstones just moments before he testified in front of Congress with regards to the Veteran Affairs' response to the COVID-19 crisis.

"I was surprised, I hadn't heard about them," said Wilkie, when Elias asked the secretary what his initial thoughts were after hearing about the discovery.

"[Nazis] don't have a place," among the resting place of fallen American heroes, Wilkie said, according to ABC News. "Now we have started the process of replacing them. These are horrific reminders of mankind at it's lowest, but we don't want to fully erase what happened because we want people to remember."

The three tombstones were fitted for German POW soldiers who died in US custody during the Second World War.

Mikey Weinstein, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation founder, who is Jewish, said his organization was alerted to the presence of the tombstones with the Nazi insignia by a retired senior military officer who in May visited the graves of his maternal grandfather, his uncle and his aunt.

“Some of them are buried with our war dead, which is shocking enough,” Weinstein said of the POW. “There’s no way you’re going to put a swastika on that grave.”

The retired officer, who spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution, said he was spurred to action knowing the stories of Jewish relatives who had suffered anti-Semitism in Europe. The mother of his grandfather, who is buried at the cemetery, was Jewish.

The two tombstones located at the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, among 140 for World War II POWs, are marked with a swastika inside a German cross, and are inscribed, “He died far from his home for the Führer, people, and fatherland.”

It’s not clear why just these two tombstones, among 132 Germans buried in the San Antonio cemetery’s POW section, have the Nazi inscriptions. Both of the deceased died in 1943.

Military times reported that in the 1940s, US Army officials approved these tombstones, which is why Veterans Affairs is hesitant to change them now, citing its responsibility to honor history.

There are an estimated 860 World War I and II-era German POWs buried in 43 cemeteries across the United States.

JTA contributed to this report.