@Roberta,
Hi Roberta: I arrived at this site by accident, by simply reasearching a spoon I found with a swastika on it, my reasearch has revealed that my spoon was probably made by the American, Navajo's, for the tourist trade in the early part of the 1900's in the US southwest: see the following
http://spoonplanet.comindiansw.html. The swastika, to the Navajo's, and many other world civilizations is a symbol of peace and has been for over a thousand years, I don't know what happened in Germany! Anyway I would like to pass on somenthing my father gave me many years ago, he served during WWII, in Italy, Africa, France, and afterward during the occupation of Germany, as a kid, I would ask him from time to time about the war and the Germans, I think he went to war with the opinion that all Germans must be Nazis, and horrible, but afterward felt quite differently about them, he was involved in alot of combat and at times during truces ,he and the other troops would feel comfortable going out to the lines to trade rations and cigeretts with them, and always felt they were always an honorable people (even in war), never violated the truces and yes fought very hard against us Americans, he also realized from his experence during the occupiation of Berlin, and through his own reasearch after the war that the Nazis were the political end of the military, and did not represent the Germans as a whole, in fact the Nazis represented a small minority who were unfourtinatly in control of Germany, and in control of all the branches of the military(much like the US today, just a different name for it), my father looked upon the Germans, later as a people who felt it an honor and an obligation to do their duty to serve and protect their country, I just hope now that you have a different view of things, and I hope you keep your spoon and continue to smile over the memories it conjers of your past with your family , and not the horrors commited by a small monority. Sincerely HW
