A woman at a California Walgreen’s spotted a roll of innocent, blue-and-white wrapping paper and must have been staring at it a little too long. Eventually, she spotted a swastika and complained, leading to Hallmark’s decision to recall the design.
Cheryl Shapiro was shopping at a Northridge, California Walgreen’s on Dec. 4 when she noticed the wrapping paper in the store’s Hanukkah display. She looked at them and told ABC News that she was shocked to see it.
“It blew me away,” Shapiro told ABC News. “What the hell was going on there?”
She then decided that the wrapping paper needed to be pulled out of WAlgreen’s stores nationally, which is exactly what is going to happen. A Walgreen's spokesman told ABC News that they are “in the process” of removing the wrapping paper.
Hallmark spokeswoman Julie Elliott told The Kansas City Star that they did not intentionally hide swastikas in the wrapping paper design. In fact, the design was licensed in several colors and wasn’t specifically made for Hanukkah. Elliot said that the Walgreen’s store probably just put it with the Hanukkah products because of the colors.
“We apologize for the oversight and apologize to anyone who was offended. That obviously was not our intent,” Elliott told the Star. “It was an oversight on our part to not notice the intersecting lines that could be seen as a swastika pattern.”
Elliott further explained that the design was actually based on an old Chinese vase design and that the symbol used to mean good luck in other cultures. Of course, today, its use is frowned upon because of the Nazis’ use of it.
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