Nazis ruin everything

when i was a kid, i lived up a mile-long gravel road. (captivating, right?) the school bus, of course, was unable to go up this road because it wasn't part of the state or county system. so, every day, i had to walk this mile-long long gravel road to get home. being an avid multi-tasker even at the tender age of 12, i would practice my trombone as i walked up the hill, which provoked the ire of the cattle that lived in the pastures surrounding the road. they would chase me and i would flee; this was our agreement.

but this is beside the point.

the point is that when i finally did make it home – dusty, sweaty, and well-chased – i would pop in a copy of The Blues Brothers, which i had recorded onto a VHS tape off of WGN, and watch it from start to finish. i did this every day, five days a week, for approximately all of 6th and 7th grade. the film taught me many things, but two stand out more than all the others:

1) there is nothing wrong with eating dry white toast.
2) never trust an Illinois Nazi.

while my adherence to the first maxim has been more or less metaphorical over the years, my allegiance to the second has only grown stronger, expanding to include all manner of Nazis. just this week, though, i received a photograph from India that reinvigorated my disdain:

Ganesha statue, replete with swastika and om

leave it to the Nazis to mess up swastikas for everybody – a benign, well-designed iconography that has been forever stained by a simple 45º rotation. this sort of semiotic carnage is typical of Nazism, ranging from all the poor souls who happened to be name "Adolf" before Hitler's rise to power, to all those once-normal towns like Dachau whose names are now synonymous with genocide.

i submit to you that Nazis ruin everything. not a new idea, granted, but the picture of Ganesha reminded me of this: each day the generation of Holocaust survivors grows smaller, and the relentless machinery of time continues to erase the living memory of that which defies signification.

with the disappearance of memory, we are left with nothing but language to speak what cannot be spoken, to sign what cannot be signed. we are left with photographs and grainy 16mm films, with taped interviews and documentaries – but can these artifacts ever transcend the limitations imposed by their aura of fidelity?

this is the question asked by Resnais and found wanting.

symbols are enlivened by the cultures that create and replicate them; their meanings are never stable, their signification always contested. each voice adds (or negates) meaning; and i wonder if the swastika, ancient though it is, will ever recuperate from that 45º rotation.

(footnote: Ganesha is the remover of obstacles.)