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Flashbacks

A child of Hitler

Faced with this sort of sickness, and with the shame so many Germans felt, I wished for years that the whole Nazi era could simply be forgotten. But five years ago, I mentioned in an article in the San Diego Union that I had once been a Hitler Youth leader and had fought for the Nazis, and that to my mind, any American who walked around in a Nazi uniform had to be a nut. I received two death threats — not because I had once supported Hitler, but because I disapproved of the wearing of Nazi regalia.

It was then that I realized that the past does not speak for itself, and that each of us is responsible for giving it a voice. I know now that to be silent can be criminal.