“Reichsadler” or “Imperial Eagle”, Nazi Symbol Reborn

"We understand and strongly agree that similarities to Nazi symbolism are unacceptable, although this design was based on the U.S. Army colonel's eagle wings."

"Stakeholder input has been and continues to be important to our schools." 

"[The new logo was chosen to] represent the eagle soaring into excellence and to honour the history of our great school."

Cobb County School District, Georgia

"I don't want to see my kids wearing that on their shirt."

"Really it's a big oversight at the county and everyone involved in the process who reviewed that, to not call out the fact that this looks like Nazi iconography."

"Or maybe, who knows, somebody did call it out and it wasn't heard."

Mike Albuquerque, father of two students, East Side Elementary

"I thought, 'That looks off. That makes me uncomfortable', and I came back to it a few times and I felt more uncomfortable and sick each time."

"My children are great-grandchildren of someone who fled the Nazi regime in Germany and survived the Holocaust."

Rabbi Amanda Flaks

"I want to see the logo not only taken away, I want a direct apology to our community."

"Not just the Jewish community, but the entire community."

Stacy Efrat, school student parent

 

The Jewish community in the Cobb County School District of Georgia in the southern United States got a bit of a shock recently when the board introduced a new logo for the Atlanta-area elementary school many of their children attended. Pursuant to the community shock over the new logo's striking similarity to an infamous Nazi symbol of World War II, area parents gathered their indignation and disbelief to convey to the board their disquietude over the presence of an iconography associated with the state-organized genocide of Jews during the Holocaust. 

The result of a parental delegation expressing stiff opposition to the introduction and use of the eagle logo, whatever its intention, whatever its inspiration, influenced the district board to halt distribution of the new eagle logo for Marietta's East Side Elementary School, particularly once its introduction drew the attention and condemnation of social media.

The Nazi eagle, designed in the 1920, later was representative of white supremacy, depicting an eagle with a swastika held firmly in its talons. The newly introduced school board logo depicts an eagle, the school's mascot, rampant over the school's initials; ES. This is the south-eastern U.S. state's second-largest school district. A delay in distributing the new logo was announced while simultaneously "immediately reviewing needed changes".

To further emphasize the extraordinary insensitivity of the new school logo, the school itself just happens to be situated directly across the street from a synagogue. The fascist war eagle, once highly valued as a Nazi icon, has more latterly been seen in use by neo-Fascist and neo-Nazi sympathizing groups. When Rabbi Flaks first saw the logo she was startled. She contacted the school over its prominent positioning eliciting an apology from the principal.

Earlier, two high schools in East Cobb were vandalized with swastika graffiti scribbled in bathrooms that prompted a community outcry.  Photos circulated of students at East Cobb Middle School wearing swastika armbands while giving the Nazi salute, on campus. Antisemitism has crept out from under the woodworks, making the inappropriateness of the eagle icon even more evident.