WWII Memorial Builds on Cruel Irony

As a charter member of the advocacy group for the proposed World War II memorial to be erected on the Mall in Washington (“Memorial Builder’s Nazi Ties Stir Furor,” June 15), I am appalled at the arrogance, insensitivity and stupidity of the American Battle Monuments Commission. I have returned my membership card in protest. Spokesman Mike Conley says, “To try to now make a connection between these American firms and what happened in World War II is unfair and absolutely irrelevant to the awarding of this contract.” Oh, really?

During World War II, Philipp Holzmann (the German owner of the American subsidiaries chosen to build the memorial) tormented slave labor to fulfill Nazi quotas. And Tompkins Builders, of Washington, owned by J.A. Jones, in turn owned by Holzmann, is to help build the American World War II memorial?

One wonders how much time Conley spent in Europe during the war. Was he, as I, a teenage GI detailed to retrieve dead bodies from battlefields? And did he happen upon deserted barns in southern Germany, as I did, to find American medics, hands tied behind their backs with their heads half blown off? Conley’s lamentable defense of the commission’s association with Holzmann, however remote, is an insult to humanity.

Fredd Wayne

Santa Monica

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The World War II memorial looks like Nazi architecture and is being built by a German-owned firm. Are they telling us that it didn’t matter who won the war?

Eric Holman

Los Angeles