The 1960's were rife with peculiar TV situation comedies. Among the most outrageous is Hogan's Heroes, a series based on the adventures of a ragtag gang of Allied soldiers in a WWII German POW camp. Considering the scenario, members of the the Fatherland's National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazis, figured prominently in the show. It was while watching a Hogan's Heroes rerun on a Sunday afternoon in my pre-tween years with my my mother and Vietnam conflict veteran uncle that I was impressed by the party's swastika symbol. Without explaining the evil the folded cross, as the swastika is sometimes called, had come to represent, my mom and unc' attempted to teach me how to draw a swastika. And no, I didn't know either of those adults in my life to be either socialist nor racist like Nazis. Did you ever during your childhood have an innocent fascination with anything that was, in reality, rather dark?

Before the swastika was appropriated and tilted by the Nazis, it was a positive emblem; in Sanskrit, "swastika" translates to "conducive to well being," and the image has been used in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism and, Native American lore, as well as secularly in product branding, sport team insignias a symbol for the North Pole and other uses. If it weren't tainted by its current association with National Socialism, would you find the swastika an attractive, perhaps welcoming, design?

Do you think the swastika can ever be redeemed of its current association with racism (as well as autocratic single-party governance and economic collectivism) by way of Nazism?

It saddens me some that an eye-catching insignia that once had a variety of neutral and positive meanings throughout so many cultures over so long a timespan has become so ignominious and provocative in such despicable ways. Can you think of any other symbols that have been overtaken by negative meanings not originally associated with them?