NYPD calls for Nazi allies to be removed from Broadway’s Canyon of Heroes

Manhattan Borough President Mark Levin said the city should remove the names of Nazi collaborators Henri Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval from Canyon of Heroes – almost 100 years after they were honored with a ticker tape parade.

“There are difficult calls here for Canyon of Heroes and the issue of revisiting modern monuments in general, but we all have to agree that Nazi collaborators are just over the top,” Levine, an ethnic Jew, told The Post.

Pétain and Laval fell into international disgrace after they collaborated with the Third Reich in sending thousands of Jews to their deaths while serving as supreme leader and prime minister of Vichy France after the 1941 German conquest.

Laval, Prime Minister of France during his October 22, 1931 parade, was executed for his crimes in 1945, and Pétain died in prison in 1951 twenty years after his own telegraph recorder was recorded just four days after of how it was passed on to his future comrade. fascist-loving Frenchman.

Their ignominious falls were especially hard on Pétain, the man internationally admired as the “Lion of Verdun” who prevented the Germans from defeating the Allied forces in a key 1916 battle during World War I.


Manhattan Borough President Mark Levin holds a microphone in his gloved hand in front of a blurred building.
Manhattan Borough President Mark Levin says Broadway is not a place where the names of Nazi collaborators like Pierre Laval and Henri Philippe Pétain are honored.
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Megan Rapinoe and other members of the World Cup-winning US women's soccer team wave American flags during a parade in their honor.
For more than a century, New York City has held ticker tape parades in honor of great personalities such as the US women’s soccer team.
Wire Image

Despite their role in one of the biggest crimes in human history, two decades ago, the City of New York immortalized their names on the sidewalk of Broadway, along with a long list of military heroes, politicians, sports idols and others honored by mayoral parades.

“You can assume that names have been added over the course of the last century,” Levin said of the names engraved on the sidewalk of Broadway. “This is a relatively recent development.”

History has hardly been kind to some people who were once honored by New Yorkers, such as former South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem, who was honored on Broadway six years before his death in a 1963 military coup backed by the United States.


An elderly white man with a white mustache in a suit sits at a table in an old black and white photograph.
French World War I hero Henri Philippe Pétain became a figure widely condemned after he collaborated with the Nazis as leader of the Vichy puppet regime in France during World War I.
Popperphoto via Getty Images

Pierre Laval sits at a cluttered table with a mustache in an old black and white photograph.
Pierre Laval was honored in 1931 as Prime Minister of France before betraying his country before being executed in 1945.
Getty Images

But the crimes of Pétain and Laval are on a whole different level, according to Levine, who will advocate their elimination at Friday’s press conference for International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

He said he would formalize his objections to their continued presence in a letter to the city’s design commission, which is pivotal in whether the disgraced French will be the first people to have their names removed from the pavement.

While former mayor Bill de Blasio tried and failed to remove their names, Levine expressed confidence that he could succeed given the role Pétain and Laval played in helping the Nazi regime kill an estimated 6 million Jews during World War II. war along with millions of other groups that fell victim to the Holocaust. as invalids, gypsies, Slavs, prisoners of war and others.


The legs of a man and woman walking down Broadway pass the name of Pierre Laval on the pavement.
The names of Laval and Pétain are clearly visible on Broadway.
AP

A crowd of people on the sidewalk, walking by the name of Pétain.
New York City added the names of the disgraced French in the early 2000s, along with other names featured in past marquee parades.
AP

In the future, there may be discussions about the potential removal of other controversial figures from the Canyon of Heroes, but why not start with two Nazi collaborators who were tried and convicted long ago in their own country, Levine argues, even though French politicians have fought Pétain at times. legacy given his heroism in World War I.

“They were active participants in the Nazi regime in Europe, in a country that persecuted and caused the death of countless students,” he said.

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