“Opa,” said Franzl with a hitch in his voice, “why do you still have this? Why is it still in this house? Why didn’t you get rid of it, burn it or throw it away back in the old days? All that is now over. Aren’t you ashamed to still have it? What will people say if they found out?”
“O little Franzl,” said his Opapa, “There were so many of those caps back then. So many of us wore them. We weren’t thinking of the future in those days. Some of us weren’t even thinking at all.”
“But Opa, it embarrasses me. Germany was wrong, we all know that now.”
“Franzl, it is not so easy to say such things. In our village everyone once put on that cap, we were proud to wear it. And besides, today I would say it is just a cap, a cap to keep the sun out of your eyes. Of course I am not proud to see that eagle on the front. And no one today knows that I once wore it with pride.”
“Not true Opa! Have you not seen the internet, photos taken at the rally here with the Fuhrer when everyone was flocking to his side to be seen with him, to be close, they all seem happy, and the closer to him the happier they look. Someone has put a circle around each person in the pictures, with their names written right there. It is like a wall of shame, and each face has been identified, and now the grandchildren of those people will face that shame too.”
“Don’t be silly, everyone knows that pictures taken back then mean nothing today. It has been forgotten, and those who do not forget have forgiven us.”
“Opa, that cap cannot be forgiven, nor forgotten, and those who wore it then should be ashamed today, even more ashamed if it is still in their attic, and anyone who sees those photos should not have to feel such shame, especially their grandchildren. We do not want that, and we do not want others to know that our groβvaters once put those caps on their heads, and how happy they looked to have worn it, and to have stood so close to him, with such joy in their eyes.”