All language subtitles for The History of the Swastika - A BBC Documentery (720p HD) (inglés_ASR)

in 1920 the leader

of an obscure german political party

made what seemed at the time

an insignificant decision

[Music]

[Applause]

adolf hitler adopted a symbol for his

national democratic socialist party

it was a symbol which over the next two

decades

would become synonymous with hatred fear

and a regime that slaughtered millions

the swastika the swastika means

nazism it means evil death

and genocide in outfits it was an emblem

that i

hated and i didn't even want to see it

but the swastika has a long and complex

history

for thousands of years this has been a

religious symbol

with a sacred past a sign of benevolence

luck and good fortune

and for the nearly one billion hindus

around the world today

it lies at the heart of their religious

practices

and beliefs for me personally the

swastika means

hope it means purity it means

auspiciousness

the swastika will be used by hindus to

evoke

a sense of the sacred to draw the

attention of the divine

to human undertakings

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but because of its recent past in the

west the hindu swastika

has sometimes provoked hostility

i've got a tattoo of swastika on my lip

and when i got it done the tattoo artist

was a little taken aback and he's like

ah

do killer and i said no

in the week when hindus across britain

are celebrating the holy festival of

diwali

we tell the story of their sacred symbol

and we bring together members of the

communities for whom

it has the most potent meaning to see if

a new experience of the swastika

could break down long-held prejudices

it's very beautiful i mean it's

obviously quite different

being gold compared to red and black

can hindus restore the reputation of a

symbol they believe

invokes the blessings of the divine

sunday morning chalfont cricket club in

leafy buckinghamshire

a place associated with english teas and

the gentle competitiveness

of the weekend sportsmen

certainly not a place you'd expect to

see a symbol most commonly associated

with the fascist regimes of pre-war

germany

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but today is an exception

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the club is host to a hindu wedding

celebration

in which the swastika plays a vital role

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as the guests congregate and the happy

couple arrive the hindu priest

has an important task

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this is hindu where is the kunkum

placing a swastika

in front of the sacred area where the

couple will sit during the ceremony

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and the meaning of this swastika is a

world away from that of nazi germany

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it's a diagram the moment you look at

the diagram which should

invoke the peace within you so it has

the swastika trustee means well-being

swastika

asking the well-being of the gods

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a statue of the elephant-headed god

ganesh is placed at the center of the

swastika

ganesh is the remover of all obstacles

and as the priest rotates him it's

believed any hindrances to the ceremony

are removed

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for hindus the swastika isn't only a

sacred power for good

but an essential element of any right of

passage

ramesh bhutni is the father of the groom

the words fastik actually comes from the

sanskrit word for

a state of auspiciousness

wherever any ceremony is performed and

hindus have got 16 ceremonies during the

lifetime

and each one of them will have one way

or the other in which the swastika

is represented in the wedding the

swastika

it is the most important because the

wedding ceremony marks a transition from

one period of life to another

and therefore all the auspiciousness is

required

hold their hands and get up yes it's the

first exercise

as unlikely as it might seem to those

not brought up in the hindu faith

for the hindus here today a wedding

without a swastika would be unusual

i now declare you wife and husband may

god bless you look beautiful

live happily ever after

for this young couple the swastika

ensures their marriage

is blessed by the gods

it's a far cry from its associations in

the west

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most western people when they see it

they

see a nazi german symbol

shawnaka has been a hindu priest for

more than 30 years

it is interesting that hindus themselves

they're brought up with the swastika

it's perfectly normal for them you see

all the children at the wedding

they're just seeing it from birth then

they go to school and learn that the

nazis use it in this way

but you have to understand that here's a

tradition that's ancient

and the germans borrow it from a

different culture and misuse it

over less than two decades and all of a

sudden it develops an internationally

bad reputation

of all the symbols produced by ancient

and modern man

this is the most contradictory and its

origins

are shrouded in mystery

images of the swastika have been found

across the world

and the earliest examples date back

thousands of years well the swastika is

one of those strange symbols that you

find

in lots of different cultures you see it

in china and japan

you see it mongolia you see it in the

ancient mediterranean world in greece

even over in native american cultures

and in the british isles as well

but despite the swastika's prolificness

its original meaning

is an enigma

perhaps it's just a simple elegant

geometry

maybe it was a solar symbol it's so

universal

that we can't really find a first point

of use it just has a kind of an

instinctive appeal

across the world

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some of the most ancient swastikas were

found here

in india

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and over the centuries it's been adopted

across the subcontinent

by many different religions

hindus buddhists and jains

all see it as a holy symbol it's

displayed

just about everywhere to bring good

fortune

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and there's one time of year that it's

especially prominent

at the hindu festival of diwali

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it's a five-day celebration to mark the

hindu new year

also known as the festival of lights it

marks the triumph of good over evil

and in india the streets are a riot of

noise and color

the festival honors deities such as the

goddess of wealth lakshmi

and so the swastika is painted on the

account books

for the new financial year to ensure

prosperity

but it's not just in the east that the

swastika features in diwali festivities

this is nisdan temple in north west

london

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it's the spiritual home to thousands of

hindus

and every diwali the ladies of the

temple spend

hours making an incredible display

known as a rangoli like this one in

which the swastika

plays a central role

mongolia patterns are literal forms of

art

and they're created by hand generally by

women

who use rice or coloured rice

avni chag has been celebrating diwali

here for most of her life

tavali represents the festival of light

if you go back to physics lessons you'd

always be taught how

the spectrum of colors originate from

white light

and i think that's completely it's

completely honoured within these

beautiful

beautiful geometric patterns within

these beautiful designs that

are created during diwali and most

commonly you will see

the hindu swastika and for some it may

mean

prosperity for some it may mean good

luck

for me personally the swastika means

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hope

for hindus who've grown up with the

swastika finding out that this emblem of

light has been used for the darkest of

purposes

can be horrifying i was pretty

much born with the symbols surrounding

me

and at special occasions uh festivals

this symbol would be prevalent and then

when i finally uh started studying about

the second world war

in history lessons at school i freaked

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out

i saw the symbol and i was just

completely gobsmacked

seeing it in this textbook associated

with the holocaust with genocide

with racial intolerance was quite a

shock

and i wondered how it could have been

sort of mutated from something so

positive to something so negative

so how did this sacred symbol come to

symbolize one of the most

evil regimes in history

the swastika's metamorphosis began with

an archaeological dig

in the 19th century

in 1874 excavations started at a site

believed to be the ancient city of troy

in turkey

they were led by a german businessman

named heinrich schliemann

schliemann was an adventurer and his

real mission was was to find the real

troy

the troy of the homeric epics now

as he dug he found spheres strange

spheres with

an equator around them bearing the image

of what we would call the swastika

and plenty of fragments of pottery

bearing swastikas

what schliemann hadn't covered was to

have deadly consequences

his work would inadvertently lay the

foundations

for a new mythology of the swastika to

be constructed

one which would transform it from a

sacred symbol of benevolence

into the nazi emblem of the aryan master

race

now fleming did not know what these

symbols were but there were

scholars who were willing to interpret

these objects and these symbols for him

one of these men was a man called emil

bernouff

banoof was a scholar of ancient indian

literature

and it was to a hindu epic called the

rig veda that he turned

to try and make sense of schliemann's

find

in the rigvedas there are a people

called the arias

mentioned and in the lexicon of the

rigvedas

the word swastika is mentioned and

scholars like bruneuf

put the swastika together with the arias

and said ah this was the

the ancient symbol of these people the

arias

and these people were invaders

warriors who came from the north who

displaced

the existing people of of india and

these were the same people

who we find represented in the pottery

fragments of troy

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two entirely unconnected mythologies

were becoming one

the people of ancient troy were being

fused with the aryans of the hindu rig

vaders

and the swastika was the symbol that

bernouf claimed united them

so really the the swastika fragment

became for pseudo scholars like bernouf

the perfect excuse to to build a new

mythology

and invent a single pan-european

colonial warrior race using the swastika

as their emblem

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for hitler a symbol with such a

mythology

albeit invented was the perfect emblem

for his ambitions for germany

the nazis were involved in this huge

project of trying to create

a new history for themselves they

weren't really happy with their

association with christian history

because they saw that as having hebrew

jewish roots and it was that notion of a

history that was being kind of imagined

out of these different symbols and

sources that hitler wanted to use

to give the nazi movement

its own foundation

within decades the swastika had been

ripped from its ancient

religious roots and become shorthand for

the nazis

and their chilling agenda

it was perhaps the most successful

example of cultural theft in history

when you look at the swastika you don't

think this is the symbol of hinduism

no the swastika means nazism

it means evil death and genocide

with its new connotations across europe

so entrenched

it seems unlikely that the hindu symbol

can

ever rid itself of the shadow of nazism

especially when for those who suffer

directly in the holocaust

it unlocks terrifying memories

i was taken into my first camp at

11 and a half it was just

a horrendous place

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eric hirsch lost 81 members of his

family under the nazis

as hussmen were there

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they were beating people and hanging

people and

just few of us survived but you see

the swastika everywhere

and i applaud it actually

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i hated to to look at the demon

because i suffered very much under it

and even for young jews today it's a

symbol

they still struggle with

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i do shudder when i see it

it's something that is very infamous in

the jewish community

and is something i think it would be

very difficult

to change

the nazi theft of the hindu's sacred

symbol changed the perception of the

swastika

in the west forever

and yet at the time in india it was

something most hindus were unaware of

the vast majority of hindus especially

in rural areas

mostly illiterate obviously did not know

for a very long time

how it had been used by the nazis but

for the educated classes i think there

was a sense of being appalled

and amongst hindus today feelings

against the nazi's theft of the swastika

run high germany

thought they can hijack this sacred

symbol from the vedic culture

and use it you know to enforce their

white supremacy and all that

and people are very angry and upset that

you know a sacred symbol so dear to them

in their religion is hijacked by

somebody like this

after the war the feeling against the

swastika was so strong

that in germany and poland it was banned

and since then it's become shorthand not

for divine blessings

but for race hatred

it's a misappropriation that's had a

real impact on hindus today

the difficult thing is that the swastika

that hitler uses and the swastika

that indian culture uses really do

look a lot the same often the indian

swastika will have dots

between the forearms but there aren't

any definite differences that you can

always use to separate them out

and that can make it hard for people to

distinguish which

symbol they're looking at

and it's this confusion in a society

with little understanding of hinduism

that's led to the hindu symbol

inadvertently finding itself

under attack

in 2007 german meps proposed a ban

of the public use of swastikas right

across

the european union it was a proposition

that upset

many hindus the british hindus

woke up to this and they carried out

a campaign to bring awareness to the

members of the parliament of

british parliament to

make them understand that how sacred

this swastika is to the

hindu faith

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the british hindu response was that this

was a eurocentric proposal

it wasn't taking into account the bigger

picture

millions of people use this symbol on a

daily basis

what had started out as an anxiety about

nazism

had turned into a fight for religious

freedom

if europe wants to be seen as a truly

liberal society

then it has to really be liberal in the

bigger picture

it has to let go of its history maybe to

look at how this symbol

has been used in the world in such a

positive way for thousands of years

compared to the european historical

aberration

that we have that needs to be recognized

but also needs to be balanced

with the bigger picture the reaction

stopped the ban in its tracks

and british hindus were free to display

their sacred symbol once more

but even though it's not illegal in

britain to show the swastika

hindus who do display it sometimes face

misunderstandings

and even insults one of the things about

hindus is we don't

always explain ourselves very very well

and children if they take into school

something which displays the swastika if

their friends and even the teachers

don't know the meaning they sometimes

get chastised

or even worse you know bullied for

being associated with nazism so

barty taylor spends much of her time

teaching children

about hinduism so it's a holy symbol for

us whether you draw it the other way or

this way

for her the key to hindus being able to

show the sign without fear

is knowledge i think that

we should have more education so that

everybody understands

that symbol is meant to be for the good

not an evil symbol

but can western european perceptions

really be changed

well where better to start than with the

community for whom the swastika

holds the greatest fears the jews

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today josh de bell a member of a london

synagogue

has been invited to the local hindu

temple in nisden

the hindus want to show him the

beautiful rangoli they've created

and to talk to him about their

connection with the swastika

in the hope that he might begin to see

it in a different light

if i saw a swastika on the wall in my

local area

i would report it straight away as an

anti-semitic attack

it's uh something that is synonymous

with uh with hate crimes

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but i can understand that when josh

comes he'll come with some idea of the

swastika

and it'll be interesting to see how he

feels when he does see it

when it's portrayed within the temple

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i don't know that much about it as a

hindu symbol

so i really hope to learn about

what it means to the hindu faith

[Applause]

avni is going to show him around

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hello hello hi josh nice to meet you

nice to meet you too how are you i'm

good

welcome to nathan temple we're very

happy to be here yeah

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and the first swastika josh encounters

appears before he even gets inside

the mainstream world like to point out

to you is on the doors

and the swastika oh yes and i guess what

it

represents or means here is a sign of

welcome

and it's welcoming and wishing them good

luck as they

enter the temple to pray it's really

interesting

i mean me and my people seeing that

symbol in the past has not really

provided me with that as many times as

you can see it yeah yeah

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how do you feel about it it's

it's it's just a little uh taken aback a

little bit by the uh

seeing it like this it's obviously quite

different being gold

compared to red and black oh yeah yeah

but it's it's uh it's really really

beautiful

are you going in yeah sure

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the swastikas on the doors had a real

impact on josh

and what lies inside is even more

striking

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how do you feel now seeing seeing this

and this is

more in red now oh right

so this is called a rangoli and i guess

it's an expression of

worship and you find it as well at times

of like really big religious occasions

or ceremonies

the swastika represents prosperity and

good luck and

wealth

how do you feel like in terms of the

shape or is it

something that's different obviously to

me it's the most

anti-jewish symbol that i've ever seen

in terms of

the death of a lot of my people in my my

religion and

uh i mean it seems a little bit less

harsh

okay yeah because of the cow yeah i

think so see um

when i was growing up i always had this

positive view of swastika so i never

understood

how it could mean something you know

that it may mean to you

as josh's visit draws to an end he's got

a lot to think about

i was taking him back on the doors and

taking it back a little bit but now you

talk about it a little bit more

and that's why i think the dialogue is

really really important we talk a lot

about what

separates us but hopefully we can use

this symbol to

come together and talk about the things

that we have in common

of knee and josh's experiences of the

swastika

are worlds apart but their meeting

has started to break down long-held

prejudice

it's still very very strange and a

little alien to me

but it's actually uh changed some of my

opinions about

the swastika maybe it can be used for

[Music]

good

i think josh's visit is like the first

step in the jewish community coming to

understand that the swastika

means so many different things he

understood that

it doesn't necessarily have to mean one

thing

universally it can mean different things

for different people

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i don't know whether the jewish

community will

feel the same way as i do but you know

what hopefully we can really start to

educate ourselves

that this symbol can be used for

something positive

[Music]

perhaps this ancient hindu symbol which

for so long has held such

different meanings for these two

religious communities

might actually bring them closer

together

[Music]

and as hindus across britain prepare to

celebrate the valley

the festival that marks the banishment

of darkness and the coming of light

maybe it's a first step towards the

swastika

being reclaimed for good

i think over time the swastika will be

redeemed in europe

just because something in one context

looks bad doesn't mean we slam it

we have to look at the bigger picture

always so the change will come

it'll just take time

wouldn't it be nice if one day there are

people who saw the swastika being used

in public and said oh i know that symbol

that's a indian symbol and hindus use it

to signify auspiciousness and blessing

and when they later come to see the nazi

use of the symbol they think gosh that's

horrific that's really inappropriate

if we can get to that point then finally

hitler will really have been defeated

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um

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