'Nazi-era' names cause climber consternation
Published: 12 Aug 10 13:05 CET | Print version
Updated: 12 Aug 10 15:01 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/28334/20100812/
A popular climbing spot in Järfälla in Stockholm has prompted controversy after the crag's climbing routes were given names from Hitler's Germany such as "Kristallnacht" and "The Crematorium".
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"I was there with my friends and doing a bit of climbing, and I thought it felt rather unpleasant to climb through the 'Crematorium' or say that 'now I am going to do Kristallnacht'," Hess told the newspaper.
Cordelia Hess argued to the newspaper that the names trivialise the suffering of the Jews during the Holocaust.
But the names are set to stay in place for the time being as it is accepted climbing praxis for the first climbers who tackle and conquer a route to be given the right to name it.
"It is up to the first climber who makes it to name a route," Stockholm climber Erik Djerf told The Local on Thursday. "It is thus that climber, or perhaps the publisher of a local climbing guidebook, who would then be able to change it".
Djerf told The Local that while there is no formal body that approves or rejects names of climbing routes, sites are registered by the Swedish Climbing Association for reasons concerning the public right of access (allemansrätten) and nature conservation.
"There is no board or committee that gives the yay or nay, but perhaps if the names would cause a great deal of offence...The names are in any case often chosen to be deliberately provocative," he said.
Peter Vinthagen Simpson
news@thelocal.se
+46 8 656 6513
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https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Cordelia
Official names are disregarded all the time by any number of climbers. Indeed the choice of name used can quickly identify from whence you came. Don't like the name? Don't use it. Or better yet, choose a deeply disrespectful name for the climbing club that the idiots belonged to and use that for every ascent (just change the number from 1-N to keep them straight).
What kind of reasoning would that be? Naming is a process of honouring. Olof Palme because he was Swedish Prime Minister respected around the world (though, as we know, held in contempt by some sections of society in Sweden). There's no evidence, obviously, that Swedes who claim contempt for Charles XII now wouldn't have regarded him a hero had they been his contemporaries. And vegetarians might be offended by a park named for living animals? No one's asking to eat them. If you can't see why people would be offended by naming climbing spots after Nazis, you lack education, information and imagination. It's not about politics. It's about systematic, murderous racists. It's not just about Jews. Just about every European south, west and east of Trelleborg could tell you why, because they have living relatives who know. And they don't think it's clever or funny for 'do-nothings-when-it-matters' to dismiss such symbols as unimportant. Get it now?
"Possible"??? Is there doubt?
The irony is that the state forbids certain names parents choose for their children. Not too long ago, a couple wishing to name their baby Elvis were denied that right by the authorities.
why am i not surprised?