Channels

The pool in Brazil

Huge swastika found at bottom of Brazil pool

Police spotted the symbol from a helicopter, believe it has been there for 13 years but won't press charges as it was on private land.

Officers in a Brazilian police helicopter were scouting a residential area Friday as part of a kidnapping investigation when they were greeted with a shocking sight – an enormous swastika adorning the bottom of a swimming pool, CNN reported.

 

 

The bizarre and disturbing discovery was made in Pomerode, in the southern state of Santa Catarina. Authorities said they believed the swastika had been in the pool for 13 years.

 

The swastika lies at the bottom of the private pool.
The swastika lies at the bottom of the private pool.

 

CNN reported that police had decided not to press charges because the symbol was on private land and could not be considered Nazi propaganda. .

 

The Nazi Party formally adopted the swastika as a symbol of the German people's supposed Aryan heritage, co-opting the sign that has held mystical and sacred meanings for some cultures since ancient times.

 

According to CNN, the Santa Catarina region has a history of immigration from Europe. Immigration from Germany and Austria was significant enough that the city of Blumenau hosts a popular annual Oktoberfest that "preserves the customs of their ancestors from Germany to form colonies in the South."

 

Many of these Central European immigrants were fleeing the destruction wrought by the Second World War. But there were also Nazi criminals who hoped to escape war crimes tribunals in their home countries. Nazi hunters found Fritz Stangl, who had commanded the Sobibor and Treblinka extermination camps, living in Sao Paolo, Brazil. He was arrested by Brazil's police in 1967 and died in German prison in 1971.

 

South America as a whole has a dubious reputation as a popular destination for Nazis after World War Two. Undoubtedly the most famous case was that of Adolf Eichmann, one of the main planners of the Holocaust, who was captured by Nazi hunters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1960. He was brought to Israel, where a highly-publicized trial resulted in his execution.

 


פרסום ראשון: 12.06.14, 18:20
 new comment
Warning:
This will delete your current comment