Now Go Play With the Nice Hitlers

NYT: The real-life Hitlers, living under an assumed name on Long Island after the war, were kind of like a neighborhood detail in A Christmas Story -

"Some German filmmaker guy came by and told me a Hitler lived here with his family," he said. "I was like, 'A Hitler lived here and ran a blood lab? What is this, "The Boys From Brazil"?' "

"My father used to say to my mother, 'Doesn't Patty (Willy Hitler) look a lot like Adolf Hitler?' " she recalled. "Once, my father told my mom, 'I just saw Patty mowing the lawn, and he turned around real quick and, my God, he looked exactly like Hitler.' And I remember thinking, 'Oh, Hitler — he was that bad guy.' "

Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

The house in Patchogue in Suffolk County, where the son of Hitler's half-brother raised four sons quietly.

Ms. Ryther recalled playing army men with Brian, whose German troops would fight her Americans.... Inside the house, it was very German, very European, and the parents spoke German," Ms. Ryther said. "I remember the boys had a toy battleship they called the Bismarck that they would float in their blow-up pool in the backyard. Once, they lit it on fire somehow, and I have this vivid memory of them all yelling, 'The Bismarck is sinking.' "