B’nai Brith Canada called for a street located in Ajax, Ontario, to be renamed because the street currently is named after a Nazi.
The street, Langsdorff Drive, is named after Hans Langsdorff, a Nazi commander who headed the Admiral Graf Spee warship in a battle with the British Royal Navy in the River Plate in 1939. Langsdorff believed that his crew didn’t stand a chance against the British, so he rebuffed Adolf Hitler’s order to fight to the end. Langsdorff later committed suicide.
Langsdorff Drive received its name in 2007, as the town of Ajax is named after a British ship that took part in the battle.
“There is no place for streets honouring Nazi combatants in Canada,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO Michael Mostyn said in a statement. “While Hans Langsdorff was attacking Allied shipping in the South Atlantic, his comrades were murdering Jews and Poles en masse in occupied Poland. These were inseparable components of the overall Nazi war effort.”
B’nai Brith Canada also noted that the Ajax Town Council voted to rename Graf Spee Lane, which was named after the Admiral Graf Spee warship.
“It is unclear why the name of the ship was deemed inappropriate while the name of its captain was allowed to remain,” the Jewish group said in a press release.
A petition also has been launched to rename Langsdorff Drive.
“The Mayor of Ajax, Shaun Collier has defended the decision to keep the street name for this Nazi,” the petition stated. “Part of the argument was that this was defended by British veterans who respected Nazi Hans Langsdorff as an adversary at sea. Sadly, those who would be most opposed and likely to speak out were reduced to ash by the Nazi machine.”
As of this writing, the petition has received 359 signatures.
