BLUE BELL — Area residents and elected officials alike have expressed outrage over reports of a Nazi flag raised in recent days at a home in Whitpain Township.
The Whitpain Township Board of Supervisors issued a statement Nov. 12 swiftly condemning the display as “abhorrent, shocking and offensive.”
“There is no excuse nor any explanation for flying this flag. Full stop,” the statement reads in part. “That flag was and remains contrary to all that we believe in and all that our township represents.”
The municipal board noted the township homeowner’s display of the flag “is protected free speech under the First Amendment,” as they stressed its condemnation “in the strongest possible terms.”
“We will not be silent in the face of evil. We trust our community will join us,” the board stated.
The flag was said to have been raised on the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht on Nov. 9. Also known as the “night of broken glass,” violent, anti-Semitic assaults were taken on Jewish businesses, homes and synagogues in Germany, according to the U.S. Holocaust Museum.
“Horrified to learn that Whitpain residents saw a Nazi flag flown in their neighborhood,” U.S. Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-4th Dist., said in a post on X. “This was a bigoted action and especially hurtful to our Jewish community around the anniversary of Kristallnacht. The recent rise in anti-Semitic gestures, actions and violence is sickening. It is hateful.”
Horrified to learn that Whitpain residents saw a Nazi flag flown in their neighborhood.
This was a bigoted action, and especially hurtful to our Jewish community around the anniversary of Kristallnacht.
— Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (@RepDean) November 14, 2024
Lansdale resident Steven Reinhart said he was traveling in a car when he saw the Nazi flag flying atop a flag pole outside a Blue Bell home.
“It’s more scary than shocking,” he told MediaNews Group.
Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairwoman Jamila Winder acknowledged the incident in her opening comments of Thursday’s county commissioners meeting, saying a “Nazi flag was raised in Whitpain Township this past weekend on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the date in 1938 when coordinated attacks of anti-Semitic violence and destruction erupted across Nazi Germany.”
State Sen. Maria Collett, D-12th Dist., issued a statement saying, “This abhorrent display of anti-Semitism, racism, white supremacy, and hate has absolutely no place in the 12th district or anywhere in our commonwealth.”
“We all deserve to feel safe here, and this grotesque display is contrary to all of the fundamental values that we stand behind here in the 12th,” Collett said in a statement. “While we will not let this unconscionable display set us back, we must do better as a community to stand with one another against any and all acts of hate and divisiveness.”
