SUNK SO LOW

By Martha Duffy

In addition to their many other accomplishments, the Nazis continue to exert a woeful hold on the Western imagination, as anyone who has attended many postwar productions of opera or Shakespeare can attest. The swastika has become a trite symbol of evil; foot soldiers in dramas tend to goose-step. Things are going a little too far, though, when synchronized swimming--also known as water ballet--fixes on death camps as a motif for aquatic drama. Such was the case with the French Olympic team, which, in preparing its effort for Atlanta this summer, crafted a routine featuring swimmers who--yes--goose-step into the pool and then, switching identities, impersonate women victims being led away to the ovens. All to music from Schindler's List.

Using the routine, the team won the European Cup in mid-May. But last week Youth and Sports Minister Guy Drut ruled amid a growing controversy over the piece that all allusions to the Holocaust had to be excised. The French Swimming Federation, which runs the sport nationally, was crushed. Synchronized swimming sounds like something Esther Williams might like to dabble in, but it is an exacting athletic skill, and the swimmers had been practicing this particular ballet for months. Said a federation official: "The program was created to denounce not only the Holocaust in particular, but all forms of racism and intolerance that we see rising."

An unassailable thought. But Haim Musicant, executive director of the Council of Jewish Institutions in France, may have the aesthetic, as well as the moral, point. Said he: "There are certain subjects you just cannot deal with in a swimming pool."

--By Martha Duffy. Reported by Bruce Crumley/Paris

With reporting by Bruce Crumley/Paris