Hallmark has pulled Hanukkah wrapping paper from shelves after someone complained it was covered in swastikas. According to Hallmark, the wrapping paper was pulled from store shelves after the company received a complaint on Sunday night from a Walgreen's customer in California, who noticed the pattern seemed to contain swastikas. By Monday, Hallmark had already recalled the paper, and issued an apology.
"We apologize for the oversight and apologize to anyone who was offended. That obviously was not our intent," Hallmark spokeswoman Julie Elliott told the Kansas City Star. "It was an oversight on our part to not notice the intersecting lines that could be seen as a swastika pattern."
The pattern in question featured a number intertwining silver and blue lines, and Hallmark says it was modeled after a pattern on an old Chinese vase. From that perspective, the swastikas may not have even been accidental: before Hitler perverted it, the swastika was an important visual motif in Chinese Buddhism.
Still, it's pretty amazing to consider that Hallmark designed a line of wrapping paper featuring more swastikas-per-inch than even the official wrapping paper of the Nazi party.
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