Speech at A Dafa Practitioner's Chinese Traditional Painting Exhibition in Florida

By Lisa Raphael, writer and holocaust survivor

My name is Lisa Raphael.

I am here to give some personal and historical perspective to the issue of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

I was intuitively drawn to the peace and calm practise of Falun Gong as I watched practitioners in the park near my home about four years ago. I was alarmed when I saw that the central symbol is a swastika though. A swastika in any form has always reminded me of my family's persecution at the hands of the Nazis. Although my immediate family escaped, I was surrounded throughout my childhood with survivors of the concentration camps. One of my closest friends growing up was a young man who survived by shovelling bodies into the ovens at Auschwitz -- including the bodies of his parents. The swastika and Nazi terrorism have been an indelible, terrifying aspect of my personal history.

So before I could join the practitioners in the park, I did some research into the swastika. I wanted to know if there was any difference between the swastika associated with Falun Gong and the Nazi swastika. The Falun Gong swastika is gold and oriented to the left. The Nazi swastika is black, tilted at an angle, an oriented to the right.

The swastika is a very ancient symbol. Both right and left oriented swastikas have been found in every culture, in every part of the world, including in caves more than 2000 years old. The word Swastika comes from Sanskrit. The swastika, in both its orientations, has always been associated with good fortune, well-being, the sun, and the light of spiritual truth.

It is interesting that both the totalitarian regime in China and the totalitarian regime of the Nazis distorted this in different ways. The Nazis, in making it black and tilting it, made it the symbol of the repression of truth, freedom, and tolerance. The totalitarian regime of China distorts the meaning of the swastika by spreading disinformation about the nature of Falun Gong based in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

It is deeply sad for me to witness this repetition of history, but it is important that it is recognised clearly.

For every generation, for every individual caught up in the struggle between truthfulness, compassion and tolerance and lies, hatred and repression, the persecution is new, fresh and shocking. Each individual and each generation, wherever this struggle happens, must find its own way to stand up to oppression. But those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. The persecution in Europe could never have happened if the rest of the world had stayed blind to it, or forgotten its own history.

We must not stay blind to the persecutions and violations happening in China.

During the rise of the Nazi regime, most countries, including this one, ignored the reports and accounts of these persecutions. "What has this to do with us?" we said. "That is going on over there. They probably have good reason to be cracking down on all those people. The Third Reich is a powerful ally and wonderful trading partner. What they are doing in their own country is not our business."

Today, as the U.S. and other countries are making new trade agreements with China, and once again, turning a blind eye to the human rights violations and persecutions. Once again, we are saying, "What has this to do with us? That is going on over there. They probably have good reason to be cracking down on all those people. China is a powerful ally and wonderful trading partner. What they are doing in their own country is not our business." The parallel is even starker when we remember that the 1933 Olympic Games were held in Hitler-dominated Germany, and the next Olympic games are scheduled in totalitarian communist China.

Art has long been a means of representing, expressing and transforming the emotional, physical and mental trauma of persecution in a way that transcends political affiliation, and speaks to all. Artistic expression is difficult to censor because it speaks directly to the soul. Art bypasses differences in race, religious affiliation or nationality and can be a powerful force for change.

This exhibit is a powerful testament to truth, faith and courage. The artist does here, graphically, what I try to do in my writing -- transform suffering into something universal, something that speaks to all.

We must not continue to stay blind.

We must not kid ourselves into thinking that what happens elsewhere in the world is not our business.

I urge each of you to do whatever you can to protest the actions of the Chinese government toward practitioners of Falun Gong -- we can begin with supporting Zhang Cuiying's art!

Thank you.