March 12, 2007 issue - A few years ago, just as her father was about to disappear into the fog of dementia, journalist Lucinda Franks stumbled upon a small box in a corner of his dilapidated apartment. The contents shocked her. Beneath some mysterious maps and crumpled foreign bank notes, she found a military cap embellished with the raised metal insignia of an eagle, a skull and crossbones—and a swastika. Franks knew little about her father's military service during World War II, and had always sensed that he was hiding something. Now questions consumed her. "Was my sphinx-like father presenting one character and living another?" she writes in her new memoir, "My Father's Secret War." "Whose side was he really on?" When she pressed for an explanation, her father refused to talk, citing a decades-old pledge of secrecy.
But after years of detective work and long conversations with her ailing father, Franks eventually pieced together most of his story. Fluent in German, he was a spy and occasionally an assassin. The Nazi cap was part of his disguise as a member of the Waffen SS, worn the night he broke into a Gestapo headquarters and killed a guard while looking for files with the names of people wanted by the Nazis. Near the end of his life, he finally tells Franks he kept the hat because of the "death's head" insignia: "I never wanted to forget who these German soldiers really were."
幾年前，正當(dāng)父親即將陷入癡呆的境地，記者露辛達(dá)弗蘭克斯在她即將坍塌的公寓角落里偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個小盒子。盒子里的東西深深的震撼了她。在一些神秘的地圖和皺皺巴巴的外國鈔票下面，她發(fā)現(xiàn)了一頂飾有金屬勛章的帽子，而帽子上突起的花紋赫然印著一只鷹，一面骷髏旗，和一個納粹的十字記號。弗蘭克斯并不太清楚她的父親在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)中服兵役的情況，但卻覺得他總是在試圖隱瞞著什么。如今一個問題深深的困擾著她：“難道我的斯芬克斯般的父親真的向我們展示一面而背地里卻是另外一個人嗎？”她把這些記錄進了自己的文章中，“父親的秘密戰(zhàn)爭?！薄八降资钦驹谀囊环?？”每當(dāng)她試圖讓父親解釋，父親卻總是拒絕說話。
但是在幾年時間的偵查和與病中父親長時間的溝通后，弗蘭克斯終于拼湊出了父親大概的經(jīng)歷。在德國的時候，他是一個特工人員，甚至有的時候進行一些暗殺工作。那個納粹的帽子是他偽裝的一部分，有天晚上他闖入了蓋世太保的指揮部并且殺掉了一個警衛(wèi)人員，尋找一份納粹分子覬覦人員的名單。在生命的盡頭，他終于告訴弗蘭克斯他保存著那頂帽子的原因，因為它的主人已經(jīng)故去了。：“我從來也沒有想要忘記那個死去的德國士兵”父親說。
But after years of detective work and long conversations with her ailing father, Franks eventually pieced together most of his story. Fluent in German, he was a spy and occasionally an assassin. The Nazi cap was part of his disguise as a member of the Waffen SS, worn the night he broke into a Gestapo headquarters and killed a guard while looking for files with the names of people wanted by the Nazis. Near the end of his life, he finally tells Franks he kept the hat because of the "death's head" insignia: "I never wanted to forget who these German soldiers really were."
幾年前，正當(dāng)父親即將陷入癡呆的境地，記者露辛達(dá)弗蘭克斯在她即將坍塌的公寓角落里偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個小盒子。盒子里的東西深深的震撼了她。在一些神秘的地圖和皺皺巴巴的外國鈔票下面，她發(fā)現(xiàn)了一頂飾有金屬勛章的帽子，而帽子上突起的花紋赫然印著一只鷹，一面骷髏旗，和一個納粹的十字記號。弗蘭克斯并不太清楚她的父親在第二次世界大戰(zhàn)中服兵役的情況，但卻覺得他總是在試圖隱瞞著什么。如今一個問題深深的困擾著她：“難道我的斯芬克斯般的父親真的向我們展示一面而背地里卻是另外一個人嗎？”她把這些記錄進了自己的文章中，“父親的秘密戰(zhàn)爭?！薄八降资钦驹谀囊环?？”每當(dāng)她試圖讓父親解釋，父親卻總是拒絕說話。
但是在幾年時間的偵查和與病中父親長時間的溝通后，弗蘭克斯終于拼湊出了父親大概的經(jīng)歷。在德國的時候，他是一個特工人員，甚至有的時候進行一些暗殺工作。那個納粹的帽子是他偽裝的一部分，有天晚上他闖入了蓋世太保的指揮部并且殺掉了一個警衛(wèi)人員，尋找一份納粹分子覬覦人員的名單。在生命的盡頭，他終于告訴弗蘭克斯他保存著那頂帽子的原因，因為它的主人已經(jīng)故去了。：“我從來也沒有想要忘記那個死去的德國士兵”父親說。