They try to recover the sacredness of a symbol of hatred: can the swastika be separated from Nazism?

Sheetal Deo was shocked when she received a letter from the consortium of her apartment complex in Queens that said Her Diwali decorations were called ‘offensive’ and was requested to remove it.

“My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastikasaid Deo, a doctor, who was celebrating the Hindu festival of lights.

The equilateral cross with legs bent at right angles is a ancient sacred symbol in hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism representing peace and good luck. It has also been used extensively by indigenous peoples around the world in a similar sense.

But in the West, this symbol is often equated to Adolf Hitler’s hakenkreuz or swastika, a symbol of hatred evoking the trauma of the Holocaust and the horrors of Nazi Germany. White supremacists, neo-Nazi groups and vandals continued to use the Hitler symbol to stoke fear and hatred.

Over the past decade, with the growth of the Asian diaspora in North America, the demand for reclaim the swastika as a sacred symbol it resonates louder. These religious communities are being joined by indigenous communities, whose ancestors have long used the symbol as part of healing rituals.

Deo believes she and people of other faiths shouldn’t sacrifice or apologize for a holy symbol simply because it’s so often mistaken for its tainted version.

“For me, this is intolerable,” she said.

However, for others, the idea that the swastika can be redeemed is unthinkable.

A symbol of hate and horror

Holocaust survivors, in particular, they could be re-traumatized by seeing the symbolsaid Shelley Rood Wernick, managing director of the Holocaust Survivors Center of the Jewish Federations of North America.

“One of the hallmarks of trauma is that it breaks a person’s sense of security,” said Wernick, whose grandparents met in a refugee camp in Austria after World War II. “The swastika was a representation of the concept that it represented the annihilation of an entire people.”

For her grandparents and the elderly survivors she cares for, Wernick said, the symbol is the physical representation of horrors who have lived

“I recognize the swastika as a symbol of hatred“.

Steven Heller, design historian and author of Swastika: symbol beyond redemption?, said the swastika is “a charged symbol for so many whose loved ones have been criminally and brutally murdered.” Heller’s great grandfather died in the Holocaust.

“A rose by any other name is a rose,” she said. “Ultimately it’s about how a symbol affects you visually and emotionally. For many, it creates a visceral impact and that’s a given“.

Origins of the swastika

The symbol itself dates back to prehistoric times.. The word “swastika” has Sanskrit roots and means “the sign of well-being”. It has been used in the prayers of the Rig Veda, the oldest of the Hindu scriptures. In Buddhism, the symbol is known as “manji” and means the footprints of the Buddha.

It is used to mark the location of Buddhist temples. In China it is called Wàn, and denotes the universe or the manifestation and creativity of God. The swastika is carved into the emblem of the Jains, representing the four types of birth which an embodied soul can attain until it is finally freed from the cycle of birth and death.

In the Zoroastrian faith it represents the four elements: water, fire, air and earth.

In India, the ubiquitous symbol can be seen on doorsteps, drawn in vermilion and turmeric, and displayed on shop doors, vehicles, food packaging, and at festivals or special occasions. In other places, It was found in the Roman catacombsin ruins in Greece and Iran and in Ethiopian and Spanish churches.

The swastika was also a Native American symbol used by many Southwestern tribes, especially the Navajo and Hopi. To the Navajo it represented a rotating trunk, a sacred image used in healing rituals and sandpaintings.

Swastika motifs are found on objects carbon dated to 15,000 years ago on display at the National Museum of History of Ukraine, as well as artifacts recovered from the ruins of the ancient Indus Valley Civilizations that flourished between 2600 and 1900 BC

The symbol was recovered during excavations in the 19th century. in the ancient city of Troy by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who related it to an Aryan culture shared by Europe and Asia. Historians believe this notion made the symbol attractive to nationalist groups in Germany, including the Nazi Party, which adopted it in 1920.

In North America in the early 20th century, swastikas were introduced on ceramic tiles, architectural features, military insignia, team logos, government buildings, and marketing campaigns. Coca-Cola issued a swastika pendant. Carlsberg beer bottles were engraved with swastikas. The The Boy Scouts issued badges with the symbol until 1940.

Rev. TK Nakagaki said he was shocked when he first heard that the swastika was a “universal symbol of evil” at an interfaith conference.

The New York Buddhist priest, ordained in the 750-year-old Jodoshinshu tradition of Japanese Buddhism, says that when he hears the word “swastika” or “manji,” think of a Buddhist temple because that’s what it represents in Japanwhere he grew up.

“You can’t call it a symbol of evil or (deny) other facts that have existed for hundreds of years, just because of Hitler,” he said.

In his 2018 book titled “The Buddhist Swastika and Hitler’s Cross: Saving a Peace Symbol from the Forces of Hatred,” Nakagaki posits that Hitler referred to the symbol as the swastika, or Hakenkreuz.

Nakagaki’s research also shows that the symbol was called a hakenkreuz in American newspapers up until the early 1930s, when the word swastika replaced it.