Moving On

Last week, Charleston City Council voted not to allow for a chimney and a fireplace that were once part of a World War II prisoner-of-war camp, located on Colony Road along the Ashley River, to be included in a municipal historical overlay zone that would have protected it.
During the war, German soldiers were housed on a work camp where several West Ashley neighborhoods now reside. The chimney and fireplace was used to warm either American soldiers guarding the camp, or German officers in a clubhouse, depending on differing sources.
Twenty years ago, the Pearlstine family purchased the property, which abuts a larger piece of land they already owned. Adding fuel to the fire, the family is Jewish.
Now, the family wants to raze the camp’s only remains, despite the claims that some of the area’s history will be lost.
Mickey Aberman, a lawyer living in Charleston, has become the Pearlstine family’s public face of the debate. He defends his family’s commitment to historical preservation, which includes “gifting” a hotel to the city that has become the historic Dock Street Theatre.
Aberman said his family five years ago agreed to allow a group from Florence to remove the chimney and fireplace, and even donated money toward the job. But the group wasn’t able to complete the job over the course of several years.
During that time, his late aunt’s county-issued demolition order lapsed and now the family wants it gone. A historian has offered to remove what’s left, but Aberman said he doesn’t know if there’s enough time.
And time has done little to diminish the resentment Aberman said his family still feels for soldiers, especially officers, of the German army.
“We do not feel like spending a lot of time, money and emotional energy to keep hosting a German recreational artifact,” he said, bolstered by research, he said, showed it was part of the officers’ club.
He said that the family was leaning toward bringing in a bulldozer at the first opportunity. “I’m in favor of it becoming rubble as soon as possible.”