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Old December 3rd, 2005 #1
ThemeOfSadness
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http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?sec...cal&id=3661759

Swastikas In Holiday Ornament?


By Willie Monroe
Nov. 23 - KGO - Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but so too, evil. That's is exactly what one Vallejo woman thought she was seeing when she found what should have been a simple Christmas ornament.

Katherine, who doesn't want to give her last name, collects Christmas ornaments.

Katherine: "Being Christian, buying a Christmas ornament every year is like buying a birthday gift to Jesus Christ."

She was shocked when she found this one at the Pier 1 store in Vallejo.

Katherine: "When I took it in my hand, what appalled me was decorations on the shawl of the doll, Nazi swastikas, unmistakably."

Pier 1 declined to remove it. The company gave her an explanation.

Katherine: "She said that the swastika on the doll is not a swastika at all. It's very pretty swirls, and purely decorative."

Riva Gambert, Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay: "To the casual observer it's a swastika."

Riva Gambert of the Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay says there's no mistaking what's here.

Riva Gambert: "They probably weren't meant to be a swastika by the manufacturer, but when one looks at it one is bringing that image, that visceral image, that obscene image into one's house."

In a random sampling of people, at first there's nothing remarkable about the ornament. We heard comments like, "it's reminiscent of a Russian doll actually, is what I think of when I look at it," "this is nice, what else?" and "it's a Christmas ornament."

But it doesn't take much to make the Nazi connection. Other said, "oh my goodness, yeah, I can see that," "I didn't look at the back, they look like swastikas" and "for a second that did cross my mind, but my mind wouldn't go that that was the intention."

Pier 1 issued a statement which says in part: "We're surprised that the babushka glass ornament... may have been misinterpreted by anyone. The ornament... has a decorative swirl pattern which is intended to evoke a nostalgic, old world charm."

For now, it remains on the shelf.
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