Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

80-Year-Old Italian Farmer Mows Giant Swastika Into Field

An 80-year-old Italian farmer mowed a giant swastika into a field on a hill, Newsweek reported.

The swastika was drawn in San Damiano D’Asti, a small town about an hour’s drive from Turin. According to La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, the man played the massive crop symbol off as a joke, and then mowed the rest of the field when police came to talk to him about it.

But the swastika did not go over well with the man’s neighbors, whose families were partisans who fought against the Nazis during World War II.

“We want to condemn a shameful gesture that should not go unnoticed. Instead it should awaken the importance of anti-fascism that is an important movement in these hills, once a theatre of the resistance,” said Frederica Valsania.

Italy has seen a resurgence in fascism in recent years. The deputy prime minister and interior minister has enacted rules that effect only “ethnic” shops, such as forcing them to close by 9 p.m. In a few instances, there have been cases of anti-Semitic violence and vandalism.

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.