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My mother told me a story once when I'd lost my student ID (at 12 years of age the only thing a student ID was good for was discounted fries at the local McDonald's so naturally I was frantic.)

In 1944, fleeing their homes in Romania from the advancing Russians, my mother Maria, her sister Dora and my Grandfather (whom I'd never met and whose name I don't even know - that's how much my mother hated him! But that's another story...) were heading west. They were stopped by German infantry ("not really German" said my mother. "many were eastern European conscripts. They looked like they didn't like us very much.") At this point, it's discovered that my Grandfather does not have papers for himself or his daughters. Whether he forgot them or had them taken from him earlier my mother didn't know. At this point she has realized that this was the first time she had ever seen her father afraid.

They are sent to a local town hall which is being administered by an SS officer. Several blocks down the street is the train station, where several hundred people are being "escorted" onto trains for the local concentration camps, then eventually heading "east" for "resettlement."

The SS officer hardly looked at the people in front of him. My grandfather protests that he is an Austrian, a citizen of the Reich (true), and that a simple phone call to the next village will clear up who he is and who his daughters are. The SS officer is about to stamp the orders that would take my family to that train - he hesitates for a moment and then looks closer at my Grandfather and his daughters...

[editors note: Now at this point, the Nazi apologist would write a little thing about how this heroic German officer would secretly be doing anything, looking for any way to save the people who come before him, that he was only following orders, was afraid of being shot by his peers if found out etc. etc. BULLSHIT!]

He looks at my Grandfather and laughs:

"Well, my friend, let us make that call. This train is almost full and tomorrow there will be another. If we don't know who you are by then..." he let the implication die off there.

I've seen pictures from the time. Many families probably have these pictures as well, but they don't show them publicly because of the reaction they will produce. My grandfather was wearing a rather stupid-looking Hitler mustache, which was probably the only thing that prevented him from being automatically loaded up on that train and sent to whatever fate awaited.

And they say fashion isn't important.
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