(New York) In New York, these are little-known but cumbersome symbols: Friday, elected officials and representatives of the Jewish community asked for the removal of plaques in the name of Vichy leaders Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval, who honor their visit under the cheers in 1931, before their collaboration with the Nazi regime.
“How can we justify the maintenance of an inscription which places men like Pétain and Laval on an equal footing with Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle”, launched Menachem Rosensaft, associate director vice-president of the World Jewish Congress and son of Holocaust survivors, whose January 27 marks International Day of Remembrance.
“(They) were directly involved in the massacre and genocide of the Jews of Europe,” he added, alongside a handful of elected officials, including Manhattan Speaker Mark Levine, the equivalent of a borough mayor.
The latter announced that he had seized the city’s public design commission, competent in the matter, concerning these plaques laid almost 20 years ago.
Unbolting
The story is not new, the former Democratic mayor of New York Bill de Blasio having promised to remove the plaque honoring Pétain in the summer of 2017, against the backdrop of a movement to unbolt statues of Confederate generals, symbols of support for slavery.
But a special commission had justified their maintenance by suggesting adding “historical context”, which did not appear on site on Friday.
New York has since moved or removed other statues, including one of former US President Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) because he was a slave owner, and the other of one of his successors Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909), because considered degrading for African-Americans and Aboriginals.
Near Wall Street, the plaques honoring “Pierre Laval, Prime Minister of France” and “Henri Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France” bear dates from 1931. They remind us that at the time, New York had welcomed with a parade on Broadway and under a rain of confetti the head of the French government then the one who was still considered a hero of the First World War.
This tradition has seen many Heads of State, soldiers returning from the front, astronauts returning from a historic mission or sports champions in the 20th century.e century, from athlete Jesse Owens to Nelson Mandela, who also have their names on the sidewalk.
But the plaques themselves were only placed on the ground in 2004, “nearly 60 years after the two (Pétain and Laval) were found guilty of war crimes in French courts”, deplores Menachem Rosensaft. The result, according to him, of a “combination of ignorance and potentially stupidity”, because “fewer and fewer people know what the Holocaust is”.