A 50-foot-wide swastika carved into San Rafael’s San Pedro hill and accentuated with red paint may not quite be the strident badge of anti-Semitism that one would assume, according to the general manager of the Marin County Open Space District.
Fran Brigmann, whose department made four separate trips up the hill in late August to obscure the swastika and large circle that surrounded it, said the vandalism may not have been aimed at the nearby Marin Jewish Community Center and “JCC trail” on the mountain.
Instead, she speculates it may be the work of neighborhood residents angry at bicyclists illegally using the trails, or bikers upset with the open space district.
“We have a lot of trail conflicts up on the San Pedro open-space preserve. There are people in the immediate area who feel the open space district is not doing enough in terms of limiting illegal mountain bike use on that property,” she said. “There are also a number of mountain bikers who think we are overly zealous in our enforcement. I have heard a biker call out that we’re a ‘Nazi organization’ at one of our meetings.”
Brigmann said that booby traps — including a wire with large pieces of wood hanging off it, which would clothesline an unsuspecting biker — have been discovered on the hill. Rangers patrolling the area have not yet caught anyone in the act of setting up traps, however.
Despite the hillside’s ongoing problems, the swastika’s location — a stone’s throw from the JCC trail, and not far from the JCC complex on San Pedro Road — can’t help but appear ominous.
Jonathan Bernstein, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said no matter what the intention of the vandal or vandals, a swastika is cause for concern.
“While it’s appropriate for people to work out their grievances, they should not rely on a swastika to make their points. It diminishes the impact of the Holocaust when it’s used that way,” he said. “It is also hurtful and offensive to the Jewish community to see that in their neighborhood.”
It was certainly upsetting for a Marin County employee, who was shocked to see the swastika from his Civic Center office window on Aug. 30. The man — who requested that the Bulletin not use his name out of fear his family would be targeted — immediately notified law enforcement officials.
“It’s very disturbing to come to work and see it on a daily basis. When I first saw it, it was very elaborate, obviously well planned out, and the corners were extremely squared. You would have to lay out a string or something to get those kinds of squares at the corners,” said the man, who isn’t Jewish but has been a JCC member for the past 18 years. “The fact is, it was at the top of the JCC trail. The only thing I can think is, hopefully, there were some kids who did it because they saw some humor in it.”
Marin County Sheriff’s Deputy Stewart Cowan filed the matter as a case of malicious mischief, and referred it to the Open Space District, which he learned had been aware of the swastika for several days and had already made an attempt to eradicate it.
Chris Bramham, chief ranger for the district, said work crews ploughed the foot-wide, red-painted dirt and covered it with sterile rice straw, a haylike substance that contains no weed seeds.
The straw does not exactly match the surrounding vegetation, however, and it “aged and wilted into the trench.” That necessitated three subsequent trips up the hill to conceal the vandalism. However, several eyewitnesses say parts of the swastika are still faintly visible.
“Because it’s entrenched in the earth, it’s a little harder to get it to disappear,” said Bramham. “It’ll pretty much go away as soon as it rains and we get grass sprouting in the area. This time of year, it’s hard to make it go away.”
Bramham estimates that “a good person with a hoe moving pretty quickly” could have carved the swastika in the course of an evening.
Ron Mogel, executive director of the Marin JCC, said no JCC members or employees have approached him to discuss the swastika, and he has only heard of it via calls from the media. He said in his 13 years at the JCC, there has never been an incidence of anti-Semitic vandalism.
Those responsible for the swastika left no evidence behind at the site, which Bramham described as “easily accessible.”
Said Bernstein: “Unfortunately, most of these kinds of crimes go unsolved. They’re done when no one else is around to witness it, so it’s hard to catch the perpetrators. It makes it very difficult to know what the motivation was to do this, what the intent was.”