How far back in a person’s history, do you hold against them?

You hear the words forgiveness, or forgive and forget, tossed around a lot. Is that just lip service? Too many it seems they hold who a person was in their past to who they are now.

If you know, say, an elderly neighbor, around his early 80s, a devout Catholic, nice to everyone, help out neighbors in really hard straights financially, and never has a bad word to say about anyone. His hobby is HO trains of which he has an elaborate layout in his garage, and when he has the door up most kids stop by to marvel at the trains. One kid takes something he didn’t think the man would miss, and it was an award and armband the old man had from when he was a member of the Hitler Youth in Germany. Would you still hold it against him? Would you black list him and tell your kids to stay away and give the old man the ”cold shoulder” from there on? Would you say he was just a kid then and that was so long ago who he is today so why make an issue of it?

What could you not let go no matter how long ago they did it or how long ago it was? Even if it wasn’t against you personally.