While I’ve had my moments when it comes to thoughtful gift-giving, for the most part, I’m not always great at picking out presents for friends and family. But, to my credit, I’ve never given any as inappropriate as the one I once received from a man who was practically a stranger.
Some years ago, I spent several months shooting and editing a television show about day-trips around Atlanta. The show’s producer, the on-air talent, and I were packing up our gear after one of these shoots when we each received identical mementos. The gift-giver was an older man, originally from Germany, who ran an attraction built around his massive toy train collection and the incredibly detailed layout he had constructed for it. The landscape was a painstaking recreation of the parts of his home that held special significance for him: the wine country, the seaside town where he had honeymooned with his wife, the city he had grown up in as a boy. The man appeared exactly as you would imagine the elderly, German builder of whimsical toyscapes might look: short, gray-bearded, and slightly elvin.
“I have somezing for you,” he said as we finished packing. He placed a tiny figurine in each of our hands. Only about an inch tall, they were lead or pewter or some other sort of die-cast metal. “You know who zis is, don’t you?” he asked with an impish grin and raised, bushy eyebrows.
In blazers and short-pants, each figure was dressed as a chubby little uniformed school-boy from another time: think of one of the youngest Von Trapps or John-John saluting at JFK’s funeral procession. But, our host had customized each with martial embellishments and age-inappropriate facial hair. The school-boy was Hitler.
Photo by Gordon Ray
The toymaker had applied the same care and attention to detail to each figurine that he had to his train layout. The tie, brass buttons and belt buckle were all clearly defined against the brown uniform. The swastika on the red arm band was only about three millimeters wide. The toymaker had lovingly hand-painted them all, and the fact that he had three available to just give away to strangers is perhaps the oddest thing about this whole incident, because it begs the questions: how many more mustachioed kinderfuhrers did he have ready to go? Was there a drawer somewhere stuffed with more metal clones: his own personal stash of miniature Boys From Brazil? Was he insane? Or, was this misguided gesture of generosity the whacky German equivalent of, I don’t know, Florida giving out free samples of orange juice at the rest-stops on the state line?
Not that I have a strictly-defined policy for such situations, but I like to think that whatever one I’ve loosely conceived includes not accepting Nazi paraphernalia as gifts, but at the time we were all so taken aback that we just laughed awkwardly in surprise and disbelief. The toys were so bizarre that we couldn’t pass them up. I did, however, politely decline his offer of a second, last-minute gift, a tiny pony-bottle of Miller Lite to go, as I was still on the clock and already seated in the car.
Up until recently, I’ve had Little Hitler at the office, on a corner of my desk reserved for other work-related keepsakes. This was probably not a great idea, especially since he was right next to a spent shotgun shell from a trap-shooting expedition we taped for the same program. Fortunately, I’m tucked away in a corner of the basement far from any foot-traffic, so I hope I’ve been able to avoid giving the impression that I’m a violent Nazi sympathizer. I would hate for that to get back to my family’s rabbi.
Over the years I’ve worked in television, I’ve noticed that when I’m involved in the editing of a show, my memories of real-life events are often shaped by the footage I see the most during post-production. As time passes, it’s not uncommon that I end up remembering only what I include in the finished program. Obviously, Little Hitler is not in the final version of the toy train segment, but I don’t think he stands any risk of ever becoming lost amid those other mediated memories, mainly because of his sheer, weird awfulness. Given his probable offensiveness and my own sentimental attachment, I will certainly never re-gift him.
