Nazi Childhood Memorabilia

Everyone can remember back to a moment in their life as a child when they learn a word that they didn't understand. Usually we overhear a new swear word said by some older kids and then go on to repeat it without even knowing its definition.

This happened to me but it wasn't a swear word that I learnt, it was the reference to the German Third Reich operated by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party from 1933 to 1945.

You see, I know a lot about the Nazi's now -  knowledge that could have easily saved me from an embarrassing incident in my past.

The year was 1996 and I was ten years old. I had recently started my school term for Grade Five and I noticed that my plastic school desk had a particular shape inscribed on it. It was my first ever encounter with the swastika.

It struck me as odd so I asked my friend sitting next to me what it was.

Nonchalantly he replied:

'Oh, that's the sign of the Nazis. They were this group who killed a bunch of people ages ago.'

Instantly I pictured an ancient tribe of head hunters wearing skull necklaces and grass hulas with war paint smeared across their faces and fresh blood dripping from their jagged spears. A romantic image of nomadic warriors hunting amongst the jungle brush.

As my friend turned his back to the class I immediately dove into my pencil case, extracted my scissors and began to carve the swastika into my desk, mimicking the previous child's craft work.

The blade of my scissors dug deeply into my desk and I carved multiple large perfect permanent swastikas almost as if I was channelling Adolf himself.

By the end of the day my desk was riddled with Nazi insignia.

A few weeks into the term I realised to my horror that the Nazi party was, in fact, a bad thing. A very bad thing indeed and the Nazis were not held in as high a regard as the nomadic tribal-men in my imagination. On the Friday at the end of the school term, all of the classes from my grade poured into our classroom for the end of term grade meeting.

Me and my classmates were shuffled to the back of the room as the other children piled in and took their place in any seats they could find. Halfway through the meeting, while I was sitting at my friends desk towards the back of the class my head rose as I heard my name:

'Mr Farrell! Dean's got Nazi signs on his desk.' said one of the children in horror.

In the following silence all I could hear was the noise of shuffled uniforms as bodies necks and heads turned towards my direction. I felt the sting of a intense judgement backed upon a decade of world war.

The teacher looked at me, withholding his disgust, he asked:

'Does your teacher know about this?'

I nodded my head meekly and the meeting resumed. Term came to an end and it was forgotten during the mid-term break.

I never got the chance to clear up with anyone that I was not associated with, or in anyway condone, the Nazi Party, and my schooling continued as I remain to this day, unpunished for the defamation of school property.