Many important stories have been covered by the New Britain Progressive in 2018. It may be difficult to name only a few articles as the top stories of the year, but there are a few the New Britain Progressive would like to share as our Top Ten. Other Top Ten stories can be found at “Top Ten Stories of 2018.”
In 2018, New Britain celebrated and honored the 65th Infantry Borinqueneers with a newly dedicated monument.
The dedication ceremony for the 65th Infantry Borinqueneers was held on April 28, 2018 at the new city park in the unit’s honor, with numerous dignitaries in attendance, including the U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Governor Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, Mayor Erin Stewart, State Sen. Terry Gerratana, State Rep. Bobby Sanchez, State Rep. Peter Tercyak, Rep. Rick Lopes, members of the New Britain City Council and officials from other cities and towns. (Monument Dedicated to Honor 65th Infantry Borinqueneers)
The 65th was organized as a military unit on Puerto Rico in 1898 and its soldiers were primarily Puerto Rican. The unit fought in both World War I and World War II. The Borinqueneers’ service in the Korean War is especially honored.
The unit was noted for its bravery in numerous battles in the Korean War. Soldiers of the 65th received 2,771 Purple Hearts, 606 Bronze Stars, 10 Distinguished Service Crosses and a Medal of Honor. Sixty-one thousand Puerto Ricans served in the military during the Korean War, and more than 700 gave their lives in the war.
The dedication was a community celebration that brought the city together around honoring our heroic veterans and visibly recognizing the Puerto Rican and other Latino heritage of New Britain.
Meanwhile, another proposed monument in New Britain, this one to Lithuanian militant Adolfas Ramanauskas, made the city a focal point discussion of a chapter in the horrifying history of the Holocaust during World War II.
The proposed monument to Ramanauskas apparently came about after the Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament visited Stewart in June of 2017, “to discuss the construction of a monument in New Britain to honor,” Ramanauskas. In December of that year, the Parks and Recreation Commission approved allowing the government of Lithuania to, “install a Lithuanian Monument in Walnut Hall Park.”
Ramanauskas was born in New Britain to a Lithuanian family in 1918. He is widely considered a national hero in Lithuania because of his leadership in partisan fighting against the Soviet Union after World War II. He was known by the code name Vanagas, or “Hawk.”
But concern was sparked about the planned monument when news about it began filtering into New Britain in 2018 from Lithuania, along with information, as the Simon Wiesenthal Center has said that,
Adolfas Ramanauskas (“Vanagas”) was the leader of the local Nazi collaborators in the town of Druskininkiai in southern Lithuania, who persecuted the Jews of that community during the initial weeks following the Nazi invasion of June 22, 1941.
In January, 2018, the website, “Defending History,” edited by Vilnius, Lithuania-based Professor Dovid Katz, questioned the planned New Britain monument to Ramanauskas, saying it sent a letter to Stewart, “to ask if her team was aware of the alleged pro-Nazi and Holocaust collaborator background of a Lithuanian militant, Adolfas Ramanauskas.” The website said,
Ramanauskas boasted in his own memoirs of leading a “partisan group” in late June 1941, and there is certainly nothing in that memoir expressing any regret over what those ‘partisan groups’ did. They murdered and humiliated Jewish neighbors while blocking roads and circling towns to ensure that Jewish citizens could not escape the Nazi choke-hold.
In April, shortly after learning about the planned monument, Ayalon introduced a City Council petition, requesting a halt to it, pending further investigation (Council Petition Would to Halt Ramanauskas Monument, Pending Investigation).
Katz said that Ramanauskas,
was the LEADER of one of these marauding bands of Hitlerist murderers who were killing Jews up and down the country in the days BEFORE the Germans got there. If there was any evidence of what he “personally did” that week it is gone, but the view of all good men and women here is that anyone who volunteered to LEAD one of those murderous groups in June 1941, and then bragged about it in his memoirs, without the slightest word of regret about what happened to his town’s Jewish minority is not necessarily a criminal but is certainly NOT a hero! Indeed, the particular unit Ramanauskas led was responsible for dozens of murders of “Jews and Communists” during the early weeks.
After Ayalon pressed the city Parks and Recreation Commission to reverse its December, 2017 decision to allow the monument and to put a halt to it (Ald. Ayalon Presses Commission to Halt to Ramanauskas Monument), Ayalon received word from Stewart ‘s office that Ramanauskas would not be honored with a monument (Ramanauskas Monument Halted).
The issue of the monument sparked debate, locally and outside of New Britain, with some commenting in defense of Ramanauskas.
Ayalon continued to press for a formal end to the monument proposal before introducing a resolution, “that any agreement between the mayor of the City of New Britain and the Lithuanian government regarding the monument for [Adolfas] Ramanauskas and the vote by the Parks and Recreation Commission from December 15, 2017, approving this monument, be rescinded.” (Council Resolution Would Officially Cancel Ramanauskas Monument.) The resolution received a majority vote of the Council, but several Republican Council members voted against it (Council Votes to Cancel Ramanauskas Monument, But Republicans Oppose).
In May, Ayalon penned an opinion piece, published in the New Britain Progressive (“The Tale of Two Monuments”), in which he contrasted the monument to the 65th Infantry Borinqueneers to the proposed Ramanauskas monument. Ayalon said,
Monuments express, celebrate, and advocate for public values. In the case of the Borinqueneers, the monument does not just celebrate their heroics but also the contribution of Puerto Ricans to the United States. In the case of the Ramanauskas monument proposal, it represents a lack of sensitivity and disregard of public participation and ownership over its own monuments. The Borinqueneers monument is a great source of pride to New Britain but having a monument to Ramanauskas in New Britain would have been a source of shame.
In a world that is still struggling to come to terms with the full horror of what happened in the Holocaust, and those responsible, the planned monument to Ramanauskas and its ultimate rejection brought home to our city part of the history of the terrors that we forget at our peril.
These stories, the “Tale of Two Monuments” in New Britain, were certainly among the top stories of 2018.
Monument Dedicated to Honor 65th Infantry Borinqueneers
April 29, 2018
New Britain is now home to the largest monument on the U.S. mainland to the highly decorated 65th Infantry Regiment, known as the Borinqueneers. The new monument, at the corner of Washington and Beaver Streets, prominently graces the main route from the north into the city’s center.
The dedication ceremony was held on April 28, 2018 at the new city park in the unit’s honor, with numerous dignitaries in attendance, including the U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, Governor Ricardo Rosselló of Puerto Rico, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, Mayor Erin Stewart, State Sen. Terry Gerratana, State Rep. Bobby Sanchez, State Rep. Peter Tercyak, Rep. Rick Lopes, members of the New Britain City Council and officials from other cities and towns.
Rep. Sanchez said that is proud that the monument is complete, “and that New Britain has been put on the map as a city that has the first unique park in honor of the Borrinqueneers in the U.S. mainland.”
The 65th was organized as a military unit on Puerto Rico in 1898 and its soldiers were primarily Puerto Rican. The unit fought in both World War I and World War II. The Borinqueneers’ service in the Korean War is especially honored.
The 65th Infantry was noted for its bravery in numerous battles in the Korean War. Soldiers of the 65th received 2,771 Purple Hearts, 606 Bronze Stars, 10 Distinguished Service Crosses and a Medal of Honor. Sixty-one thousand Puerto Ricans served in the military during the Korean War, and more than 700 gave their lives in the war.
Members of the unit faced discrimination and segregation, and overcame these and many other obstacles.
Over the years, leaders in New Britain’s Puerto Rican community, notably former Police Commission Chair Manuel Reyes, have advocated for honoring the veterans of the 65th.
The monument to the 65th Infantry was made possible by $300,000 in state funding secured through the efforts of the city’s legislative delegation last year, led by Rep. Sanchez. Sanchez said that, “The people who served in the 65th Infantry would be so proud that they have not been forgotten and the past couple of years, starting with the Congressional Medal of Honor, we have seen many come together to honor the men and women that served in the 65th.”
“Its true that in other states there are small monuments that have been erected in honor of the Borrinqueneers,” Sanchez said, “but this one here in New Britain is the largest and most unique and we should all be proud.”
Sanchez said, “I want to thank everyone that has been involved in this project and has embraced the effort to get this done. Our delegation in Hartford, including the former late Rep. Betty Boukus, Rep. Peter Tercyak, Rep. Rick Lopes, and Sen. Terry Gerratana. I want to thank our Governor, Gov. Malloy, for his support for the bonding, former Mayor Tim O’Brien and current Mayor Erin Stewart, the 65th Infantry Historical society group, Alderman Emmanuel Sanchez, Alderman Willie Pabon, Alderman Kristian Rosado, Alderman Richard Reyes, New Britain Latino Coalition and Carmelo Rodriguez, the NB veterans Commission and the dedicated professionals who designed and built the Monument.”
Council Votes to Cancel Ramanauskas Monument, But Republicans Oppose
May 11, 2018
The City Council has approved a resolution to revoke approval of the placement of a monument to Adolfas Ramanauskas on city parkland, but all five Council Republicans present voted in opposition of the revocation resolution.
Concern was sparked about the planned monument to Ramanauskas when news about it began filtering into New Britain in 2018 from Lithuania, along with information, as the Simon Wiesenthal Center has said that,
Adolfas Ramanauskas (“Vanagas”) was the leader of the local Nazi collaborators in the town of Druskininkiai in southern Lithuania, who persecuted the Jews of that community during the initial weeks following the Nazi invasion of June 22, 1941.
The legislation approved by the City Council on May 5th resolved, “that any agreement between the mayor of the City of New Britain and the Lithuanian government regarding the monument for [Adolfas] Ramanauskas and the vote by the Parks and Recreation Commission from December 15, 2017, approving this monument, be rescinded.”
Ald. Aram Ayalon (D-3) appealed, “Mayor Stewart, we have a great opportunity to sign onto this resolution and join our legislature in sending a message to Lithuania that we, in New Britain, will not participate in the campaign of hiding the Holocaust, and the role played by locals in exterminating Jews.”
Though it was approved, Ald Robert Smedley (R-4), Ald. Daniel Salerno (R-AL), Ald. Don Naples (R-4), Ald. Wilfredo Pabon (R-1) and Ald. Kristian Rosado (R-2) all voted against the resolution revoking the Ramanauskas monument.
In June of 2017, Republican Mayor Erin Stewart had met with the Speaker of the Lithuanian parliament who, she said, after visiting U.S. officials in Washington, DC, “wanted to stop by New Britain to discuss the construction of a monument in New Britain to honor,” Ramanauskas. On December 15, 2017, the Parks and Recreation Commission approved allowing the government of Lithuania to, “install a Lithuanian Monument in Walnut Hall Park.”
In January, 2018, the website, “Defending History,” edited by Vilnius, Lithuania-based Professor Dovid Katz, questioned the planned New Britain monument to Ramanauskas, saying it sent a letter to Stewart, “to ask if her team was aware of the alleged pro-Nazi and Holocaust collaborator background of a Lithuanian militant, Adolfas Ramanauskas.” The website said,
Ramanauskas boasted in his own memoirs of leading a “partisan group” in late June 1941, and there is certainly nothing in that memoir expressing any regret over what those “partisan groups” did. They murdered and humiliated Jewish neighbors while blocking roads and circling towns to ensure that Jewish citizens could not escape the Nazi choke-hold.
In April, shortly after learning about the planned monument, Ayalon introduced a City Council petition, requesting a halt to it, pending further investigation.
After Ayalon pressed the city Parks and Recreation Commission to reverse its December, 2017 decision to allow the monument and to put a halt to it, Ayalon received word from Stewart ‘s office that Ramanauskas will not be honored with a monument. Stewart later called Ayalon to relate that the monument was not to proceed.
However, on April 24th, Ayalon received a message through the City Council’s office that Parks and Recreation Director Erik Barbieri, “was told by the Mayor’s office that it was verbally conveyed”, that the Ramanauskas monument would not proceed, but that, “he will not be sending any written response to [Ayalon’s] petition, per instruction by the mayor’s office.”
In response, Ayalon pressed Stewart in an email, saying,
Dear Mayor Stewart,
First I want to reiterate my thanks to your decision to halt the memorial for [Adolfas] Ramanauskas. However, in order to get an official document of your decision, there needs to be a written response to my petition as well as a vote in the Parks and Recreation Commission which voted in December to approve this monument. Absence of this official paper about your decision leaves the possibility that the monument might still be implemented.
I respectfully awaiting your written response.
Alderman Aram Ayalon
On April 25th, Stewart responded,
Dear Alderman Ayalon;
As we discussed on the phone, this project to honor Ramanauskas has been cancelled.
This email should suffice your request.Mayor Erin E. Stewart
At the April 25th City Council meeting Ayalon pressed for Stewart to:
1. Have a vote by Parks and Rec to revoke its monument approval decision from December 15 and have it reflected in the minutes
2. The mayor should submit a written letter explaining how this monument decision came about and publicly revoke this decision for good.
Ayalon then introduced the resolution for the Council’s May 9, 2018 agenda.
Ramanauskas was born in New Britain to a Lithuanian family in 1918, which is apparently the reason why New Britain was selected as the site of the proposed monument. He is widely considered a national hero in Lithuania because of his leadership in partisan fighting against the Soviet Union after World War II. He was known by the code name Vanagas or “Hawk.” Chicago-based Draguas News referred to Ramanauskas as, “One of the last and best known commanders of Lithuanian armed resistance to Russian occupation.” He was captured by the KGB, was tortured and was executed in 1957. Ramanauskas was given numerous official honors after Lithuania became independent from the Soviet Union in 1990, and the Lithuanian parliament, called the Seimas, dedicated 2018 in his honor.
In opposing the resolution revoking the monument, Salerno quoted a statement that had been made by the organization, Lithuanian Jewish Community, in 2017, saying that it, “knows of no reliable information based on extant historical documents confirming the accusations made against Ramanauskas implicating him in the Holocaust or the murder of Jews of Lithuania.”
However, Katz said that, “there are deep divisions within the small Jewish community here (total of about 3000 in all of Lithuania). There is the ‘official’ Jewish community, lavishly sponsored by the government that tends to take government positions on major issues against the sensibilities of the surviving Jewish people here.” He added that, “there is the Vilnius Jewish Community, actually representing by democratic vote the 2,200 Jews of the capital, whose 21 member council was democratically elected last year.”
Katz has said that Ramanauskas,
was the LEADER of one of these marauding bands of Hitlerist murderers who were killing Jews up and down the country in the days BEFORE the Germans got there. If there was any evidence of what he “personally did” that week it is gone, but the view of all good men and women here is that anyone who volunteered to LEAD one of those murderous groups in June 1941, and then bragged about it in his memoirs, without the slightest word of regret about what happened to his town’s Jewish minority is not necessarily a criminal but is certainly NOT a hero! Indeed, the particular unit Ramanauskas led was responsible for dozens of murders of “Jews and Communists” during the early weeks.
Salerno argued that the process of considering the Ramanauskas monument was an as-yet incomplete process, with no final decision. Smedley questioned Barbieri, who said that there are no current written contracts concerning the construction of the monument but that there was a decision by the Parks and Recreation Commission on it.
However, Ald. Brian Keith Albert (D-2) said that, “We should have had more facts before any steps were taken forward.”
City Corporation Counsel Gennaro Bizzarro, an appointee of Stewart, argued that the City Charter restricts the Council’s powers in a way that made the resolution revoking the monument without effect and only advisory. This was a similar argument made by Bizzarro in opposition to the Council’s resolution to institute a city hiring freeze, which later became the core of Stewart’s own arguments in vetoing the hiring freeze resolution.
In a recent opinion piece (“The Tale of Two Monuments“), Ayalon contrasted the recently dedicated monument to the 65th Infantry Borinqueneers to the planned Ramanauskas monument. Ayalon said,
Monuments express, celebrate, and advocate for public values. In the case of the Borinqueneers, the monument does not just celebrate their heroics but also the contribution of Puerto Ricans to the United States. In the case of the Ramanauskas monument proposal, it represents a lack of sensitivity and disregard of public participation and ownership over its own monuments. The Borinqueneers monument is a great source of pride to New Britain but having a monument to Ramanauskas in New Britain would have been a source of shame.
The Tale of Two Monuments
May 8, 2018
by Ald. Aram Ayalon
On Saturday, April 28 I attended the ceremony unveiling a monument in New Britain for the Borinqueneers – the Puerto Rican Infantry Regiment of the US Army. The audience was dressed up for the occasion holding Puerto Rican flags, veterans in full uniforms, and a festive environment full of pride. It was a culmination of 6 years of hard work to find a location, seek state funding and obtain city support to commemorate a unit that became a national icon in Puerto Rico and among Puerto Ricans on the mainland for their heroic combat role, especially during the Korean war. The speeches made by the governor of Puerto Rico, governor Malloy, senator Blumenthal and most important, by Representative Bobby Sanchez who secured the funding for this project, were very meaningful to the audience, most of whom were members of the New Britain Puerto Rican community. Many shed tears when the national anthem of Puerto Rico was sung.
There was, however, another monument in the making in New Britain. Last summer, the speaker of the parliament of Lithuania visited New Britain and requested to erect a monument for Adolfo Ramanauskas, who was born in 1918 in New Britain and left to Lithuania 3 years later. This year, Lithuania named Ramanauskas a national hero because of his anti Communist activities and for being tortured and killed by the Soviets. The mayor of New Britain agreed and the Parks and Recreation Commission voted last December to approve the monument to be placed in Walnut Park near the Museum of American Art. There was no public discussion, no involvement of the local Lithuanian community in this initiative, and no struggle to secure state funds. Funding for this proposed 11-feet massive monument was going to be provided by Lithuania including $1 million insurance. In fact, it seems that the whole monument proposal was kept in low profile and almost a secret. It was only because of letters and e-mails by a concerned Jewish community in Vilnus, the capital of Lithuania, that this monument plan came out to light. It turned out that Mr. Ramanauskas was very likely a Nazi collaborator. During the summer of 1941 when the Germans were invading East Europe and the Soviets were receding, there was a temporary power vacuum where Lithuanians (as well as other Eastern Europeans) were taking advantage of the situation to kill Jews. Ramanauskas was, according to his memoir, a leader of one of the white armband militia groups who killed Jews and surrounded villages to prevent Jews from fleeing the Nazis.
As an alderman in New Britain, I raised concerns and fought against the Ramanauskas monument that would have been offensive to me, other Jews in Connecticut, and anyone who is concerned with this issue. The fight supposedly culminated with mayor Stewart’s brief, one sentence e-mail canceling the monument project. We are still waiting for an official vote and mayoral statement rescinding their prior decision.
Monuments express, celebrate, and advocate for public values. In the case of the Borinqueneers, the monument does not just celebrate their heroics but also the contribution of Puerto Ricans to United States. In the case of the Ramanauskas monument proposal, it represents a lack of sensitivity and disregard of public participation and ownership over its own monuments. The Borinqueneers monument is a great source of pride to New Britain but having a monument to Ramanauskas in New Britain would have been a source of shame.
Editor’s note (5/8/2018): Ald. Aram Ayalon (D-3) is a member of the City Council representing the Third Ward.
