Swastika Saturday: When a Haunted House Crossed the Line

About this episode

The episode discusses the controversy surrounding the Haunted Hoochie's Swastika Saturday event and its implications after a tragic shooting.

It's a second Halloween Encore Episode! "Hoochie" is another name for a shack. Merriam Webster doesn't know this and will tell you that a hoochie is a "sexually promiscuous young woman" (like that's a bad thing). But the Oxford English Dictionary says that a hoochie is a WWII reference for a "lean-to" or a temporary shelter. So, let's go with shack because OED is a more authoritative source than judgey Merriam Webster. A Haunted Hoochie is therefore a haunted house and the most famous of all Haunted Houses is The Haunted Hoochie located in Pataskala, Ohio. It's a family run Haunted House attraction that for the last 28 years celebrated "Swastika Saturday" - an event meant to make fun of Nazis, not to celebrate them. But that distinction wasn't clear in October 2018 after a gunman opened fire in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 innocent people. Haunted Hoochie took a lot of criticism for holding their Swastika-Saturday-Event on the same day as the shooting. Haunted Hoochie came out with an apology, which wasn't so great and didn't help things. So they did what all reasonable people do when their first apology doesn't stand a ghost of a chance, they apologized…

People in this episode

Host: Apologies Accepted

Topics covered

• Halloween
• apology
• Nazism
• haunted house
• cultural sensitivity

Keywords

• Haunted Hoochie
• Swastika Saturday
• apology
• Pittsburgh shooting
• Halloween

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Haunted Hoochie

Places: Pataskala, Ohio, Pittsburgh