Last night's American Pickers.......02/15/2021

[pararaftanr2]

For anyone actually interested in watching the segment being discussed, it was season 22, episode 6, which you should be able to watch from this History Channel link:    https://www.history.com/shows/american-pickers/season-22

[aef1917]

What makes everyone think the revulsion was "feigned"?  You don't need to know much about WWII to be viscerally disgusted by Nazis, and being in a house with a bunch of Nazi stuff should make anyone uncomfortable.  Spending any time around TR collectors makes it abundantly clear that far too many aren't "honoring the sacrifices of victorious GIs" or "making sure we never forget history" or whatever mealy-mouthed excuse they use to mask their Nazi sympathies.

[ajbUSWM]

22 minutes ago, aef1917 said:

What makes everyone think the revulsion was "feigned"?  You don't need to know much about WWII to be viscerally disgusted by Nazis, and being in a house with a bunch of Nazi stuff should make anyone uncomfortable.  Spending any time around TR collectors makes it abundantly clear that far too many aren't "honoring the sacrifices of victorious GIs" or "making sure we never forget history" or whatever mealy-mouthed excuse they use to mask their Nazi sympathies.

 

For your information, for decades many of the leading Nazi memorabilia collectors in America were Jewish.  Other large collections were from servicemen returning from Europe with duffel bags full of their spoils of war ... I know of at least two who dedicated entire rooms to showcase the enemy they slayed.

 

I also know collectors would have world class German, American, Japanese and Soviet items in their collections. 

 

I do not collect TR items myself nor Soviet items... Leftist/Socialist/Communist items hit too close to home for my tastes ... but I don't judge others who have an interest in collecting history.

 

Plus, for decades I'm told that TR items were some of the most profitable collecting investment you could make ... Hitler's toilet seat just sold for $23,000.  I suspect that profit has driven the TR market since the 1960s .. now American items are on the rise as more collectors gain interest. .

 

 

[BILL THE PATCH]

It's was feigned because she said she didn't learn about ww2, if she didn't learn about it how can she be disgusted by it?, I know alot if TR collector's and none of them are secret neo NAZIS waiting for the fourth reich.

Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk

[cutiger83]

Why is everyone getting their knickers in a wad over reality tv?  Just watch it or don't watch it but why complain? 

 

And why does every generation complain about "the kids of today"?

 

Your grandparents complained about your parents. Your parents complained about you. Now you are complaining about youth today. History does repeat itself and so does complaining about "kids today".  I am active with the youth today and actually have hope for our future. Rather than be an old fart complaining , spend some time with them. 

[Hookemhorns88]

1 hour ago, aef1917 said:

What makes everyone think the revulsion was "feigned"?  You don't need to know much about WWII to be viscerally disgusted by Nazis, and being in a house with a bunch of Nazi stuff should make anyone uncomfortable.  Spending any time around TR collectors makes it abundantly clear that far too many aren't "honoring the sacrifices of victorious GIs" or "making sure we never forget history" or whatever mealy-mouthed excuse they use to mask their Nazi sympathies.

Whoa whoa whoa.  I do not actively collect TR but I do have a bit of it displayed with the balance of my USGI collection.  90%+ of the items that I do have came from my great-uncle who was a medic serving in WW2 with the 103rd ID.  He bothered to pick them up, save them for many years, and then passed them down to me along with his military service items.  The balance of my TR items also came directly from vets that I know that they gave them to me when the gave me their US items.  It meant enough for them to grab the items and as for me, I have a broad collection of US items and these TR items just provides a glimpse of why the US was over there taking care of business.

[trenchbuff]

1 hour ago, cutiger83 said:

Why is everyone getting their knickers in a wad over reality tv?  Just watch it or don't watch it but why complain? 

 

And why does every generation complain about "the kids of today"?

 

Your grandparents complained about your parents. Your parents complained about you. Now you are complaining about youth today. History does repeat itself and so does complaining about "kids today".  I am active with the youth today and actually have hope for our future. Rather than be an old fart complaining , spend some time with them. 

I don't wear "nickers" and I'm entitled to an opinion without a snarky response.  If you have something to say, say it without the condescending attitude.

[manayunkman]

I couldn’t agree more Kat, amen to that!

 

For almost 20 years I went to schools all over central PA brought things I got from veterans and used them to tell their stories.

 

A little girl in 4th grade sent me a thank you letter once that said “thank you for coming to our school but you didn’t tell me anything my grandfather hadn’t already told me.

 

Good for her, I thought, she won’t forget.

 

I also did a class on hate, how it starts and where it can end up using things from my Dutch family, who for the most part survived the Nazis, and American GIs.

 

And yes I had Nazi items.

 

When I was in my 50s my dad wrote a memoir titled sarcastically “The Nazis Can Really Ruin Your Golf Game”.

 

It was a selection of short stories, one of which my father never told me.

 

In the late winter of 1944 my father, 14, was caught after curfew by the Nazi police with a radio tube in his pocket.

 

They were certain he was up to no good.

 

He had no direct connection to the underground, the tube was for a radio so he could listen to the BBC and not the Nazi run state news which had very little to do with reality.

 

They beat and drug him to The Hague Park where they continued to do atrocious things to him and left him for dead.

 

Now mind you by 1980 my father saw me drag a ton of Nazi stuff out of the woodwork so I was horrified to tears and called my father immediately to apologize for parading this stuff around him.

 

All he said was “ Peter I know Nazis and you are not a Nazi “, Ill never forget that.

 

Many in my Dutch family never came to terms and hate the “Germans” but not my dad he wanted to do and did business with them then have them over to the house.
 

My focus is on American but do enjoy a captured item from time to time.

 

 

[67Rally]

Every TR piece that I have came home with my uncle (MIS/CIC officer). I don't "collect" it nor do I glorify it. My wife is Jewish. Her great grandmother immigrated from Lithuania in the early part of the 20th Century and left behind her parents, siblings, cousins, etc. My wife's grandmother (born in the U.S.) met some of her relatives in the 1920s and maintained contact through correspondence all the way up into the war. Everything went silent when the Germans moved into the area. Please sent to her family to get out went ignored. It wasn't until the late 1940s when crewman from a merchant ship who (was from the same Lithuanian village as her family) arrived in NYC seeking to tell the story of what happened with the Nazis came to town and how all of the Jewish citizens were slaughtered. I mention this as my wife was fairly concerned when I brought home my uncle's "trophies" and was researching them to sell on behalf of my grandparents (where the pieces were stored in my uncle's unopened trunks since they arrived in 1945). "My grandmother is going to lose it to see all of this Nazi stuff in our house." My response was, "why do we have to say anything about it?"

When her grandparents came for a visit, my wife, of course unburdened herself to her grandmother about the TR pieces and her response was, "May I see it?" I brought everything out and much to our surprise, she was fascinated. My wife asked her why she wasn't upset. I will never forget her response. "These are just objects. Objects didn't kill my family. Hateful people did. We have to remember that and holding onto things like this helps us to remember." That was more than 25 years ago. I still have all of it, today.

[ajbUSWM]

15 minutes ago, 67Rally said:

. "These are just objects. Objects didn't kill my family. Hateful people did. We have to remember that and holding onto things like this helps us to remember." That was more than 25 years ago. I still have all of it, today.

 

AMEN ... a voice of reason.   

 

"Those who want to erase the lessons of the past plan to repeat them."

[Thor996]

45 minutes ago, ajbUSWM said:

 

AMEN ... a voice of reason.   

 

"Those who want to erase the lessons of the past plan to repeat them."

 

 

+1 agree!

[cutiger83]

I went to a meeting where the speakers were the children of Holocaust survivors. I will never forget one person who spoke about her parents. They were both survivors of the Holocaust. They met after the war. Both her mother and father were the only survivors in their respective families. This woman spoke about being in elementary school and hearing her classmates talking about spending the holidays with their grandparents and other relatives. She said she didn't understand because she had no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no family except for her siblings and parents. I will never forget hearing the stories from these adults who were children of Holocaust survivors. It was both eye opening and heart wrenching. 

 

I can understand why these families would be disgusted and never want TR items in their house. I can also understand why some families may want to keep the items their relatives brought home from the war. Everyone has their reasons for their personal feelings. 

 

...Kat

[67Rally]

4 hours ago, ajbUSWM said:

 

AMEN ... a voice of reason.   

 

"Those who want to erase the lessons of the past plan to repeat them."

She was a wise woman. She died a few years ago short of her 103rd birthday.

[BEAST]

13 hours ago, cutiger83 said:

I went to a meeting where the speakers were the children of Holocaust survivors. I will never forget one person who spoke about her parents. They were both survivors of the Holocaust. They met after the war. Both her mother and father were the only survivors in their respective families. This woman spoke about being in elementary school and hearing her classmates talking about spending the holidays with their grandparents and other relatives. She said she didn't understand because she had no grandparents, no aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no family except for her siblings and parents. I will never forget hearing the stories from these adults who were children of Holocaust survivors. It was both eye opening and heart wrenching. 

 

I can understand why these families would be disgusted and never want TR items in their house. I can also understand why some families may want to keep the items their relatives brought home from the war. Everyone has their reasons for their personal feelings. 

 

...Kat

Kat, in the 1980's, I used to work out in a gym near Skokie, Illinois which had a large Jewish population, It was not unusual to be working out next to a person and see the numbers that were tattooed onto their arms during their time in a  concentration camp.

[cutiger83]

6 minutes ago, BEAST said:

Kat, in the 1980's, I used to work out in a gym near Skokie, Illinois which had a large Jewish population, It was not unusual to be working out next to a person and see the numbers that were tattooed onto their arms during their time in a  concentration camp.

 

I am sure that made an impression on you. It made such an impression on me that a generation born after the Holocaust was so greatly affected by it. To have no relatives at all as a child was unimaginable to me.

 

 

[MattS]

On the flip side of "these war trophies were brought back by my uncle/grandfather" is the small case of German medals in my room in memory of my wife's grandfather who was on "the other side" during WW2. Hans immigrated to the US in the 50s through the Lutheran church, and my wife and kids wouldn't be here if he hadn't survived the Russian front. He was no nazi, hated them in fact, he was just a guy who liked tinkering with radios and found himself in the Luftwaffe whether he wanted to be or not. 

 

I believe George Santyanna said it best, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

[cutiger83]

7 minutes ago, MattS said:

small case of German medals in my room in memory of my wife's grandfather who was on "the other side" during WW2. Hans immigrated to the US in the 50s through the Lutheran church, and my wife and kids wouldn't be here if he hadn't survived the Russian front. He was no nazi, hated them in fact, he was just a guy who liked tinkering with radios and found himself in the Luftwaffe whether he wanted to be or not. 

 

A couple years ago, we had visitors from a retirement home stop by our hangar. They were sitting around talking about WWII. I will never forget one woman in a very soft voice say "I was on the other side".  She was a child during the bombing of Dresden. She told a few stories about the bombers flying over but I will never forget her flinching when a small plane landed at the airport. All of these years later and she still flinched at the sound of a plane engine. 

 

Matt, have you ever read the book "A Higher Call"? Great book! 

[TLeo]

If her reaction was real, then it was ridiculous given her statement about "not knowing much about WW2".  I suspect it was actually some B.S.  "politically correct" statement to show her "wokeness".  I also believe that is the case because of their previous nonsense catering to that self serving idiot Fike.  Once one realizes that this show is like all the other "reality" shows and that it is fake with pre-arranged deals it is somewhat entertaining to see many of these old items. 

[MattS]

31 minutes ago, cutiger83 said:

A couple years ago, we had visitors from a retirement home stop by our hangar. They were sitting around talking about WWII. I will never forget one woman in a very soft voice say "I was on the other side".  She was a child during the bombing of Dresden. She told a few stories about the bombers flying over but I will never forget her flinching when a small plane landed at the airport. All of these years later and she still flinched at the sound of a plane engine. 

 

Matt, have you ever read the book "A Higher Call"? Great book! 

I have, great book! Read it while camping a few summers ago. 

 

I remember my wife's Oma (grandmother) had a unique reaction to the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. When we stopped by their house that day, she said, "It's terrible. Now imagine it happening in your town every day for 4 years." And with that she went back to cooking. Boy, was she an excellent cook, I miss her meals. I was fresh out of the Army and probably 150 pounds. She would say, "You're too skinny, sit, essen, essen."

 

I guess my point to all this is that you can have German items in your house that memorialize family without it being a shrine to fascism. 

[manayunkman]

Can you own WW2 German items without memorializing?

 

Just because it interests you?

 

I sold my German collection in 2009 as the writing appeared on the wall.

 

Didn’t want to be labeled a Nazi by association.

These days people are quicker to judge than at any other time in my life.
 

 

[trenchbuff]

20 minutes ago, manayunkman said:

Can you own WW2 German items without memorializing?

 

Just because it interests you?

 

I sold my German collection in 2009 as the writing appeared on the wall.

 

Didn’t want to be labeled a Nazi by association.

These days people are quicker to judge than at any other time in my life.
 

 

Yes, I see a lot of people backing down these days out of fear of being labeled.  It's a shame because that's how you lose your freedom.

[MattS]

17 minutes ago, manayunkman said:

Can you own WW2 German items without memorializing?

 

Just because it interests you?

 

I sold my German collection in 2009 as the writing appeared on the wall.

 

Didn’t want to be labeled a Nazi by association.

These days people are quicker to judge than at any other time in my life.
 

 

I'd like to think it's not an "either-or" scenario where "either you own zero German WW2 items or you're a nazi sympathizer".

[ajbUSWM]

32 minutes ago, trenchbuff said:

Yes, I see a lot of people backing down these days out of fear of being labeled.  It's a shame because that's how you lose your freedom.

 

Sadly, that appears to be their objective.    When they couldn't win the Cold War, they pivoted and won using a Culture War.., and with that loss, our freedom.

 

[conn]

most shows today are scripted. that is my belief and its because they need sponsorship,

but the truth should be told, and respect given to all, not just because we have a disease now called being politically correct.

a disclaimer should be posted on the screen before they roll the footage.

 

i remember an episode where they take advantage of a vet from the PTO and rob him of his japanese sword he liberated.

that is when i lost all respect for the show.

 

not all germans where fire breathing Nazis.

when i was a child, after watching an episode of the World at War, i ask my dad about his german relatives, what happen to them. He said

they were anti Nazi and were eliminated for being open about it.

Today, kids are not taught world history about ww2.

school curriculums  skim over it saying it was them against us and no other details.

 

my father brought home boxes of trophies he liberated in the Pacific during ww2.  never took them out  and told the stories of the boxes. he  never spoke about the pacific island fighting( he did have nightmares about it till the day he died) until i ask for his signature so i may join the Marines at age 17.

he did not give it.  i had to wait till he died to become a Marine.

 

the collector world has been gifted with so much in physical items, but not the stories behind the stuff.

perhaps todays children should work in museums.  have to do cleaning, restoration and preservation of these items, collect oral histories of older vets of all times in history.  the new generations of people coming up  would understand what the hell went on, give respect and give more appreciation of the liberties they commonly have today.

 

history should be a lesson that all future generations understand  and respect .

 

semper fi

[cutiger83]

11 minutes ago, conn said:

 

Today, kids are not taught world history about ww2.

school curriculums  skim over it saying it was them against us and no other details.

 

I have a niece in high school right now and this is simply NOT true.  They are taught about WWII in greater detail than you mention. But if you think about it, we have had over 80 years of additional history since the start of WWII. We have been thru the Korean War, Vietnam, Gulf War, Afghanistan, etc etc etc. We have had astronauts land on the moon. We have seen development of ALL kinds of historical accomplishments. While you may care only about the history of WWII, it is not the only history of our country. 

 

When U.S. history is taught in college students can get into greater detail. In high school, do you want to gloss over ALL other history just to go into extensive detail about the 6 years of WWII? Vietnam War, Korean War and Afghanistan veterans would say something about that.