JTA — When visitors and local researchers in the Netherlands realized earlier last month that two panels honoring Black American soldiers who helped liberate Europe from the Nazis had disappeared from the US military cemetery at Margraten, the reaction was swift.

Local officials demanded explanations, historians raised concerns, and the story quickly spread through Dutch and international media. The country’s leading Holocaust museums and World War II memorial centers issued a joint letter urging the United States to restore the displays, and more than 30 members of the US Congress sent their own letter seeking answers.

But the explanations publicly offered were only partial. The American Battle Monuments Commission, which manages Margraten and all overseas US military cemeteries, said the exhibits were simply part of a routine rotation in a limited visitor-center space. Officials did not directly address why one of the removed panels — the one explaining that the US Army was segregated during World War II and describing the racism Black soldiers faced at home — had been taken down.

Now, internal emails obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal, for the first time, how the decision unfolded inside the agency. They show that the head of the monuments commission at the time, Charles Djou, was closely monitoring a flurry of executive orders issued by US President Donald Trump after his return to the White House.

The records indicate that Djou hoped to keep his small agency out of Trump’s crosshairs and moved quickly to avoid attracting negative attention from the new administration.

On March 19, the day Trump signed an executive order banning foreign-facing agencies from promoting what he called “discriminatory equity ideology,” Djou instructed his staff to ensure the monuments commission was in full compliance, even though, he noted, the order didn’t specifically apply to the agency.

Under the subject line, “Foreign DEI,” Djou asked whether the agency’s internal databases cataloging fallen African-American and Native American troops could now pose a problem, and whether any displays at overseas visitor centers might “get us in trouble.”

One exhibit in particular drew his concern: a panel at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial, where more than 8,000 Americans who helped liberate Europe from the Nazis are buried. Installed the previous year, the panel explained that the US military was segregated during World War II and highlighted the Black troops who fought both the Germans abroad and racism at home.

A senior staffer replied that he had already scrubbed the agency’s website of........

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