Would you hang this in your house?

Not sure why people are voting on aesthetics, when the OP is clearly asking about the ethical side of it.

Hitler was an awful man, but I'd still think it an incredibly interesting thing to look at if I visited your house.

Elizabeth I executed shit loads of people but I'll bet no one would care having something referencing her on view. Having it up in your house doesn't do him any honour, does it? It honours the compassion of your relative (as @SethTrek says) and helps us remember that there were many decent people in Germany who recognised that.

I would because it's really interesting, but would try to find an "ironic" location like a bathroom or something like that. Definitely not in a "prime" location like dining room.

It's a part of his family's history and a award for his relative . I think I would hang it upstairs where family can see but not visitors.
You can be proud of her award but doesn't mean you like who signed it.

It wouldn't bother me if I saw it as a visitor, I love history and would find it fascinating. Probably one of a kind.

I've read the thread carefully now and am pondering people's visceral responses. They're all valid (well, mostly) just different.

Context is everything. Im looking round my own living room (which you walk straight into from the street) and thinking it does actually look like a museum. The first thing you see is a massive painting of my great great grandmother, who died in Berlin in 1943. There's a photo of my mum as a toddler clutching a menoriah. There's a painting of a rabbi FGS. Subtle it ain't, and you can't miss that Im intensely interested in memorabilia from that period.

Presumably OP isn't living in a memorial of dead relatives like I am, and this thread will have shown her how many people will respond to the certificate. There are ways to manage that. But I still think we shouldn't give magical properties to Hitler's name. The certificate is not cursed.

I've just remembered that I've also got a small bust of Stalin, another truly evil man, that I picked up from a vintage stall in Moscow nearly 40 years ago. And I'm currently translating letters written home by a great uncle when he was fighting for the Germans in WW1. He was shot off his horse, and it's sad to think that some of his colleagues then may have been Nazi commanders 20 years later. Am I wrong to have these things, I wonder?

Its not glorifying Nazi's, its commemorating and acknowledging the immense bravery of a British Nurse.

If it has Hitler's signature, it is Nazi memorabilia.

No, I'm not. You are, in a very big way.

missing the point!

Like me? No.

I don’t think it’s inherently offensive to Jewish people we aren't a single viewpoint, and many are very committed to preserving historical artefacts, even uncomfortable ones, because they’re part of the truth of what happened. This isn’t Nazi memorabilia, it’s a record of a British nurse’s bravery in a horrific period. The context and intention matter.

All the more reason not to display it, then!

I don't know for sure, but Germany and Austria take anything that could possibly be a positive or even neutral slant on Hitler and Nazism very, very seriously. I don't know if it would be illegal in those countries, but it might be.
I don't think that signalling disapproval is a 'performative performance'(which phrase is a tautology anyway) I would genuinely be disturbed that anyone would think that displaying an item signed by Hitler is in any way appropriate.

I think if you have it up it would be good for people to get to choose not to look at it. So out of the entrance hall and lounge and such. It would make me feel icky to look at that name while at a play date or having a drink with a friend. As a Jew with a gay mother and a black sister in law, my whole family would have been wiped out for multiple reasons. And I know it was a long time ago but given the recent experiences of my children as the only Jews at their school, the worry my grandparents experienced is feeling relevant again today.

I appreciate you want to honour this important part of your own history but can’t you display the medal on its own? With a photo of this brave woman maybe?

Just to add: in this situation I might mount the certificate and have the mount conceal the signature. That way it wouldn't be confronting for visitors.

Your relative should absolutely be celebrated. She was saving lives, not collaborating with Nazis. Just cut your mount a bit higher so that her name is the focus, not Adolf's.

I am not sure such a performative performance is a sign of intelligence.

Care to explain why it would be illegal?

are you even aware that many non-Jewish families also suffered, badly, from Hitler's regime?

That debate is a live one in this house! I have oil paintings - portraits - hung all over, usually bought off Ebay. I got one that in the listing looked like a charming 30s portrait of a young man. Only on receiving it did I realise it is actually Nazi art (name on the back: Portrait of a Brownshirt).

My daughters feel I should burn it, or at least give it a disrespectful glow-up with lipstick and sequins. I think context is everything: my family are Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, nobody is going to think we are Nazis. Maybe this young man was an evil-hearted fascist who is spinning in his grave at ending up in our house, next to my menorah. Or maybe he was in over his head, frightened and soon to be dead.

We argued this for ages and the compromise was that it is hung where my daughters and visitors dont see it. I do understand their point of view, but also feel that Hitler ruined far too much for my family when he was alive and he should not have any say in my interior decor now he is dead.

If I were you I would hang that certificate with pride.

These certificates are online. It depends if it bears the large Nazi Eagle. It's a valuable piece of history, especially being signed by Queen Victoria's grandson, who was a British Prince and carried the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha name. I wouldn't display it, but if it fits in, then go ahead. If it was signed by the other heads of the Red Cross, I'd say no, because they took part in human experiments. I'd look at this as historical.

Yes

Someone may have posted this link already but I’m guessing this is the event linked to the OP:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschland_incident_(1937)

I mean I thought YANBU meant YANBU for having reservations about hanging it.

Oh god is this freaking menopause? I can't even explain the mistake I made or what I thought. 😆

Oops I voted the wrong way. I thought YABU was YABU for hanging it.

Surely the point of History is to discuss things from the past - mostly what went wrong and why it shouldn't be repeated. If I were Jewish I would be happy to remind people how I felt about that and all genocide. We have visited plenty of places around the world where they are keen to keep people aware of terrible incidence so people don't forget and perpetuate the same feelings all over again.

Yes, it does. The Oxford definition of an opinion is: “A belief or judgement which is not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.”

If I expressed the opinion that Hitler was a great guy, would you not disagree with that opinion?
Surely the fact that something is described as an “opinion” doesn’t mean it’s beyond criticism or that other people aren’t entitled to disagree with it.

But hey, if you want to believe Hitler wasn’t all that bad, that’s entirely up to you. Equally, other people are entitled to form their own opinions about you. Funny how that works, isn’t it?

She was saving German lives that were there helping the Fascists with the Condor Legion and testing out new tech.

Guernica.

How is this even a question!? If I saw such an item in someone's house I would walk straight out. I am astonished and disturbed that 35% of people on the poll think that this would be ok to display. In some countries it would probably be illegal!