Asian faiths try to save sacred swastika corrupted by Hitler
Sheetal Deo was shocked when she got a letter from her Queens apartment building’s co-op board calling her Diwali decoration “offensive” and demanding she take it down.
“My decoration said ‘Happy Diwali’ and had a swastika on it,” said Deo, a physician, who was celebrating the Hindu festival of lights.
The equilateral cross with its legs bent at right angles is a millennia-old sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism that represents peace and good fortune. Indigenous people worldwide used it similarly.
But in the West, this symbol is often equated to Adolf Hitler’s hakenkreuz or the hooked cross – a symbol of hate that evokes the trauma of the Holocaust and the horrors of Nazi Germany. White supremacists, neoNazi groups and vandals have continued to use Hitler’s symbol to stoke fear and hate.
Over the past decade, as the Asian diaspora grew in North America, calls to reclaim the swastika as a sacred symbol became louder. These minority faith communities are being joined by Native Americans whose ancestors used it in healing rituals.
Deo believes she and people of other faiths shouldn’t have to sacrifice or apologize for a sacred symbol simply because it is often conflated with its tainted version.
“To me, that’s intolerable,” she said.
Yet to others, redeeming the swastika is unthinkable.
Holocaust survivors could be re-traumatized by the symbol that represents a “concept that stood for the annihilation of an entire people” and the horrors they experienced, said Shelley Rood Wernick, managing director of the Jewish Federations of North America’s Center on Holocaust Survivor Care. Her grandparents met at a displaced persons’ camp in Austria after World War II.
“I recognize the swastika as a symbol of hate,” she said.
Steven Heller, author of “Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption?” said it is “a charged symbol for so many whose loved ones were criminally and brutally murdered.” Heller’s great-grandfather perished during the Holocaust.
“A rose by any other name is a rose,” he said. “For many, it creates a visceral impact.”
The symbol itself dates back to prehistoric times. The word “swastika” has Sanskrit roots and means “the mark of well being.” It has been used in Hindu prayers, carved into the Jains’ emblem, marked Buddhist temple locations, and represented the four elements for Zoroastrians.
The symbol is ubiquitous in India today. It also has been found in the Roman catacombs as well as various places in Greece, Iran, Ethiopia, Spain and Ukraine.
The symbol was revived during the 19th century excavations in the ancient city of Troy by a German archaeologist, who connected it to Aryan culture. Historians believe this is what made it appealing to the Nazi Party, which adopted it in 1920.
In North America, in the early 20th century, swastikas made their way into architectural features, military insignia and team logos. Coca-Cola issued a swastika pendanta. The Boy Scouts awarded badges with the symbol until 1940.
The Rev. T.K. Nakagaki said he was shocked when he heard the swastika referred to as a “universal symbol of evil” at an interfaith conference. The New York-based Buddhist priest thinks of swastikas as synonymous with temples.
In his 2018 book titled “The Buddhist Swastika and Hitler’s Cross: Rescuing a Symbol of Peace from the Forces of Hate,” Nakagaki posits that Hitler referred to it as the hooked cross or hakenkreuz.