Controversy arose during Never Again!’s annual Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week after a group of unidentified students placed flags juxtaposing the Holocaust memorial on Driscoll Green late Monday night.

Never Again!, an organization dedicated to genocide awareness, sets up a memorial every year on Driscoll Green to remember the state-sponsored genocide committed by Nazi Germany. Referred to as the “Field of Flags,” the display memorializes groups systematically murdered by the Nazis including Jews, Poles, Roma and homosexuals.

On April 9, members of Never Again! discovered that a group of students placed flags opposite to the Holocaust memorial during the night without permission from campus administrators, prompting a response from Never Again!.
“We feel like those students turned the memorial into something political,” said Never Again!’s vice president and senior, Stuart Portman.

“We’re not trying to make a political statement. It was simply a memorial to all 12 million people that died in the Holocaust,” said Portman.

The flags placed across from Never Again!’s memorial represented populations murdered in other historical mass killings, such as in Rwanda and Stalin’s Soviet Russia, according to a sign posted near the field.

So far, no students have publicly stepped forward to claim responsibility for the flags.

Some students said that the original display did not go far enough in recognizing other genocides.

“Students for Justice in Palestine [SJP] feels that the campus response, including the installation of an unaccredited flag display, illuminates a serious oversight by Never Again! in their planning of Holocaust and Genocide Awareness week. We hope that they will work to create a more inclusive display in the future which recognizes other genocides,” said SJP member Kaitlyn Griffith, in a statement from the organization.

Never Again!’s president, Wendy Low, and Portman both expressed concerns about the effect this incident has on the greater DU community.

“The issue is that this was done at night without permission from DU,” said Low, a sophomore majoring in Biology. “If groups can’t stand behind their actions, then it’s a problem for the university because it creates fear for people.”
Student Life is still looking into who was responsible for the incident, said Thomas Walker, director of educational programs and LGBTIQA services at the Center for Multicultural Excellence (CME).

“Our problem is not with the flags themselves or with what they meant,” said Low. “The issue is that they didn’t go through proper protocol, they’re insensitive and they politicized a memorial. Our stance is the same no matter who the group was.”

Never Again! and CME are organizing a small group comprising of the Office of Equal Opportunity, the Office of the Chancellor, the Office of the Provost, Hillel, Chabad, the LLCs, USG, Campus Life and Campus Safety in order to enact policies that will change the nature of dialogue between DU organizations.

“We’re reaching out to groups to find a constructive path and a way to dialogue, which we believe isn’t happening now,” said Low.

According to Portman and Low, changes set forth by Never Again! and CME would push to create a forum that facilitates debate and dialogue from an academic perspective as opposed to an emotional perspective.

“We’re creating a space for Jewish organizations and SJP to have dialogue, for the whole campus to have dialogues,” said Portman. “We want things to be as public as possible, so that we can avoid worse targeted events from occurring in the future.”

Griffith also said that other student groups, such as SJP, also hope for a change in “campus discourse,” that incorporates a “political narrative based on shared struggle and solidarity.”

All members of all groups would have to take part in what Low and Portman hope will set a new standard for a

positive outcome and a more active, more cooperative campus.

“Our goal is to make incidences of cultural insensitivity less common,” said Portman.  “To us, this event is akin to the cowboys-and-Indians themed party that happened last year.”
“There have been repeated offenses of insensitivity to different organizations, and it deserves a campuswide response,” added Low.
Students can expect to hear more about these changes within the coming weeks.