Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times
City officials and preservationists want to protect the chimney as a piece of a forgotten America. But the property’s owners, members of a prominent Charleston family, see it as more than just an obstacle to their development plans.
They are Jewish, and they want it gone.
During the war, more than 400,000 captured enemy soldiers were shipped to the United States to live in guarded camps and provide much-needed labor, especially on farms and in mills. As many as 10,000 were sent to South Carolina.
If the landmark designation is ultimately approved by the City Council, the Pearlstines would have to preserve the chimney unless granted special permission to knock it down. In other words: Jews would be required to keep a Nazi-built relic on their property.
Nor can he shake an image of well-treated German soldiers warmed by this fireplace, singing the Nazi anthem, “The Horst Wessel Song.” He would not mind as much, he says, had German soldiers died here.
“If people want to come by and see where the Germans sat around during the war, it just...,” he says, pausing, imagining their relative comfort. “A sort of anger wells up that isn’t there when it’s just a bunch of bricks.”
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Where's the "tolerance"? Where's the "diversity"? Where's the documentaries on the human drama, the experiences and angst, endured by these prisoners?
Where is NPR? Where is PBS? Where are the whining journalists and the sobbing humanitarians?
Where's the restitution - with interest - to the survivors of the prisoners?
