One of my most treasured possessions is covered in Nazi swastikas.

It is the passport of my maternal grandmother. She was a German-Jewish physician named Hanna Hirsch, and she escaped her country before Hitler's troops could take her to the death camps.

The slim document is a powerful testament to history. On its brown cover is printed the Nazi eagle and swastika. On the first page, the letter "J" is stamped in red ink, identifying her as a Jew. On the next page is her photograph, a woman with haunted eyes.

The following pages tell the story of her extraordinary journey. There's the visa issued Sept. 28, 1938 by the American consulate in Leipzig, allowing her to come to America as a temporary visitor to the United States.

Seven weeks later, on Nov. 16, 1938, she was admitted into New York City for just three weeks. She went to Cuba after that and then returned to New York permanently, where she began a medical practice.

She was very lucky. Jewish refugees were not welcome in most places.

A widow, she had left her three young children behind in Germany. They were evacuated to safety in England before the war began. One of those children was my mother.

Should I feel ashamed for owning this passport?

I don't. Instead, I feel privileged. It provides a direct connection to a terrible period in history. You can feel the oppression of the Nazi regime as you turn the pages.

I thought about the passport the other day, when I heard about the protest that stopped a St. Jacobs antique market from selling Nazi memorabilia.

Public complaints and online criticism caused the landlord of Market Road Antiques to halt sales of items such as swastika flags, cufflinks and a document signed by Hitler.

Police said no law had been broken by the vendors. The sales were stopped only because of pressure from local residents, who say any display of the swastika is unacceptable.

I'm glad there are well-meaning people who want to remain vigilant against the hatred that fuelled the evil Nazi regime in Europe. But I wish those people had thought longer before they acted.

Our relationship with memorabilia from history's most dreadful moments is a complicated one. A few people might buy these items to feed an unhealthy fascination. But more often, people will be attracted to these kinds of items so that they can retell that story.

Suppose someone wanted to buy an authentic Nazi flag or cufflinks to use in a play or a film? Suppose a teacher wanted to buy a document, like my grandmother's passport, to help bring history to life for his or her students? Suppose the people who collect memorabilia do so in order to help themselves remember?

What has happened in St. Jacobs is a kind of censorship. What's next? If there's a German film festival in town, will organizers be afraid to show the brilliant but deeply disturbing work of Leni Reifenstahl, the film director who was Hitler's propagandist? Will a local bookstore refuse to sell Hitler's racist manifesto, "Mein Kampf?"

I hope not.

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My grandmother was one of the luckiest Jews in Nazi-dominated Europe, simply because she managed to stay alive. After the war, she was reunited with her children. They shed their old identities and started over in America. But even so, she was miserable. She struggled constantly with depression. She died of an overdose of sleeping pills in 1973.

Her passport is the only record I have of her struggle. No one should tell me what to do with it.

- Uproar ends sale of Nazi items at St. Jacobs store