Swastika Town Refused to Change Name

By Alex in Travel on Sep 28, 2007 at 2:14 am

Our previous post on Swastika is all about how the symbol meant other things before it was co-opted by the Nazis.

Neatorama reader Gitai found something else: a town In Ontario, Canada, named Swastika that refused to change its name during World War II, claiming that they had the name before the Nazis ruined it!

During World War II, the provincial government sought to change the town’s name to Winston, in honour of Winston Churchill, but the town refused, insisting that the town had held the name long before the Nazis co-opted the symbol. Residents of Swastika used to tell the story of how the Ontario Department of Highways would erect new signs on the roads at the edge of the town. At night the residents would tear these signs down and put up their own signs proclaiming the town to be "Swastika".

Link – Thanks Gitai!

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H Bickers
Sep 28th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Unity Valkyrie Mitford, one of the famous Mitford sisters was born in Swastika when her parents, later Lord & Lady Redesdale were ther working a mineral claim. She thought this, along with her wagnerian middle name, to be a fateful sign when she developed her crush on Hitler, who used the big blonde model anglo-saxon englishwoman for publicity purposes (and some say other purposes as well). She blew half her brains out in a failed suicide attempt when the war began and lived on pitiably with the mind of a small child.
Look up the lives of her and her sisters, each of whom threw herself into some 20th century cause/man with fanaticsm. Interesting bunch.
XuYu
Sep 29th, 2007 at 1:59 am
I heard that they were going to try to cover it up through the installation of solar panels and various landscape modifications!
kanone
Oct 1st, 2007 at 4:28 am
i dont get it. why is swastika so bad all of the sudden. Nazis are long gone and the symbol has ecsisted long before the propacanda minister of nazis took the symbol as on of their.
Even finnish airforce had to stop using the “symbol of luck” even tho it was blue and not standin on its “hand” und other direction swatstika that the nazis used xD
karen
Jan 10th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Swastika will celebrate 100 years of existence this summer. Should be a fun time. Check out the action during the laat weekend of June, 2008.

There will be a lot of material on hand to view.

Swastika is also famous for being the only place in the world to have four means of transportation intersecting in one spot — air, railroad, highway and river — all meeting in the middle of the town.

I, and my family, have been proud members of this community for over half a century!

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