A true story: This chimney, planted like a limbless live oak on a residential street, was built by imprisoned German soldiers during the final year of World War II.
City officials and preservationists want to protect the chimney as a piece of a forgotten America. But the property’s owners, members of a prominent Charleston family, see it as more than just an obstacle to their development plans.
They are Jewish, and they want it gone.
“Every time I see the structure, it makes me think about the ovens,” says Mary Ann Pearlstine Aberman, 79, who co-owns the land. “I don’t see any reason to make a shrine to Nazis.”
I’m not Jewish, so I don’t share the visceral hostility of the Pearlstine’s. But I do understand it. And as far as I can tell the arguments from the preservationists seem to boil down to nostalgia.
Further the Pearlstines have been extremely reasonable in this matter. They have offered to let it be moved, and even offered to sell the piece of land it sits on. Apparently everyone who wants this thing kept, also does not want to spend any of their own money to that end.
Ultimately though, this looks like a case of property rights. In all but very rare cases people are entitled to do with their property what they want. If an object of extraordinary historic importance is found on someone’s land, that may justify some governmental regulation. But this is clearly not the case. This is a chimney, not a statue by Michael Angelo. The fact that it was built by POWs in the Second World War does not imbue it with any high level of historic significance. I tend to get very uncomfortable when people try to use the government to interfere with their neighbor’s property rights. And I see no justification here.