Swastika Day Organizers Happy With Reaction to Nazi Symbol

Beach goers in New York and New Jersey were shocked to see a plane flying up and down the beaches with a banner hanging from its tail with a Jewish Star of David with a Swastika in the middle and a sentence of symbols that says Swastika=Peace+Love. The organizers of the plane are trying to reclaim the Swastika from symbolizing the Nazi murders of more than 10 million people in death camps to its previous meaning of love. Not every one is convinced and the organizers of the event said they were happy the banner was generating discussion.

Thomas Kaenzig, organizer of “World Swastika Rehabiliation Day”, said to the Huffington Post,

“It got the attention, so it was a success. One thing leads to another. Some people will go beyond the knee jerk reaction and go to the website and see what we’re really about.”

Kaenzig s a member of the Raelians, a UFO cult/religion that claims to have more than 70,000 members. They believe the Swastika is a symbol of the Elohim, an alien race of people who created human beings. Kaezig also points out that before Germany’s Nazi Party took control of the use of the Swastika it had been prominently featured in Hindu and Buddhist art, Native American drawing and even on synagogues in Israel.

The Raelian website says of the Swastika,

“Our objective in this annual “Swastika Rehabilitation Day” is to… rehabilitate the image of this very ancient symbol which has, in recent decades, been equated only with Hitler’s horrors, when in fact, the swastika has always meant something very beautiful, peaceful and loving for billions of people all over the world and still is by billions of people,”

Not everyone is convinced. Jewish beach goers who saw the banner still could not believe that there were people who did not realize the effect the symbol would have on those who survived the Holocaust or lost relatives.

Don Pripstein, president of the Jewish Community Center of Long Beach Island said to the Associated Press,

“They may have good intentions, but the image is more powerful than good intentions at this point. The image is so horrendous that no matter what their ultimate purpose is, it’s extremely negative.”