Erasing Signs of Hate
Swastikas in D.C. Fall to Army of Volunteers

Washington Post
SATURDAY April 27, 1996

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer

They knelt at an orange newspaper box in the drizzle, spraying and scrubbing and spraying again. A middle-aged man in a baseball hat. A blond in his twenties. A young woman in a Muslim head scarf. Passersby glanced at the slowly disappearing graffiti and moved on. Finally, a tall man in a tailored gray suit asked. "What is that?"

"A. swastika."

"Oh." Pause. "Are you volunteers.?"

Chris Homan, 21, looked up long enough to nod.

"That's great," the stranger said, before the light changed and he entered the crowded crosswalk. "Thank you. Really. Thank you."

On most days, Homan. Dan Strasser and Hebba Hassanein are colleagues at the National Democratic Institute at Dupont Circle. Yesterday, they were foot soldiers in a small army that fanned out through downtown Washington, armed with sponges and small plastic bottles of solvent and determined to erase some of the dozens of swastikas that have been scrawled or painted on public corners in recent months.

The lunch-hour effort was sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, the Greater Washington Urban League and the Points of Light Foundation. ADL officials had been told that the city is too broke to have its Public Works employees remove the hooked crosses, a symbol of Nazi Germany that still represents the hatred of that regime.

The swastikas are part of a rise in anti-semitic incidents reported by the ADL in the Washington area last year, in contrast to a decline nationwide.

It was Homan's idea to join the effort to get rid of the swastikas. He saw them each day on his way to work and was wondering what he could do about them. Strasser, 49, the only Jewish member of the trio, decided to go with him after seeing a swastika on Connecticut Avenue NW this week. And Hassanein, 22. whose religion is always on display because of her scarf, immediately agreed yo pitch in.

"It's really important that all communities stand up against hate," the daughter of Egyptian immigrants said. "When we don't act, then we all fail."


Horde | Suspect | Swastikas | Man Guilty