Sculpture featuring swastika on Highway 2 is World War II memorial, says maker
May 27—ARVILLA, N.D. — A sculpture displaying a waving American flag above a metal replica of a Nazi flag and a Japanese Rising Sun flag on U.S. Highway 2 near Arvilla, North Dakota, is a World War II memorial, its maker says.
Cliff Haugen, an Arvilla farmer and metalworker, made the sculpture and is displaying it on his land. He says he made the sculpture a few years ago as a memorial to remember soldiers who died in World War II and has displayed it in the past.
"The reason for those flags is honoring the fallen dead — the men of those countries, and women, who gave their lives in defense of their country," Haugen said. "That makes them pretty honorable."
Haugen says people often get upset about the swastika — featured within the replica Nazi flag — displayed on the structure.
"I'm a metal cutter and I deal in symbols. I don't deal in philosophy, so make of that what you will," Haugen said. "I just cut patterns, but overall on that structure is the American flag."
The American flag is placed in the middle of the structure, rising well above the other two symbols.
Bert Garwood, president of the B'nai Israel Synagogue in Grand Forks, said issues around the display of the Nazi flag hinge on intent and context. When he spoke to the Herald, he said he was speaking for himself and not as a representative of the Jewish community in Grand Forks.
"What I see when I look at that is the flag of the United States waving proudly above the shadows of its defeated enemies," Garwood said. "The U.S. flag is flying in full color, the other flags are silhouettes, the shadows of regimes that no longer exist."
Garwood said honoring soldiers in the armies of Germany and Japan that died during WWII is OK, but leaders of those countries during the war should not be honored.
"The rank-and-file soldiers were as much victims of those regimes as anyone else," Garwood said. "They really had no choice in the matter, so the rank-and-file soldiers, yes, but the leaders of those regimes, they had no honor. They deserve no honor, so nothing should be there to honor them."
In the case of the sculpture near Arvilla, the composition was important, Garwood said. The flags being displayed at the same level would tell a different story.
"With today's climate, with Neo-Nazism rising and antisemitism rising, we have to be very careful about how those things are displayed, and those who display it should take care not to make it look like they're supporting those beliefs," Garwood said.
Interpretation of the sculpture is up to its viewers, Haugen said.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and how people interpret that structure is up to them. I know how I interpreted it, and my intent is not to offend anyone," Haugen said. "If they take offense, that's how they interpret the symbols. I am not espousing any philosophy with them."
