What's Up with All the Horrifying Nazi Gear in Mexico City's Markets? Laura Feinstein - Fusion
go to original March 17, 2016

Mexico City's La Lagunilla Mercado is full of old Nazi junk (Luis Chaparro)

La Lagunilla market can best be described as “labyrinthian.” It’s a maze of color, sound and bustle in a city already incomprehensibly saturated with activity.

A sprawling weekend market and tianglis, or vintage flea, it technically begins at the south side of Eje 1 Norte, but has no fixed borders, growing in size and density depending on the day and vendor population. Inside, it offers everything from knock-off Luis Vuitton, to fresh tortillas, to stacks of hand painted (and often fairly gory) retablo votive paintings - depictions of the lives of the saints. It’s also got a ton of Nazi gear.

On our first visit just a few weeks ago, for what was supposed to be a quick look and a bite to eat, we ended up unearthing a full SS outfit (with cap), swastika armbands, Deutschland insignia and even vintage Nazis war medals shipped from Europe via “specialty dealers.” The sheer amount of Nazi-themed gear we encountered - new, old, even homemade - was, to put it mildly, enough to make us forget all about the agua fresas we’d come for.

In service of full disclosure, both of my paternal grandparents are survivors of the holocaust, so maybe I’m a bit more sensitive to this material than the average person. But then again, what person encounters so many swastikas without a visceral reaction? Multiple booths, in full, open view, of Nazi paraphernalia, sold by smiling men and women haggling over prices - shocking, yes, but as we soon learned, not an anomaly in the D.F.

Read the rest at Fusion

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