Vacationing Email number 3

I have been remiss in my chronicles. I just can’t seem to write about this adventure because I’m so busy absorbing it all. I apologize….

But sometimes I need to just lay down my feelings and this is a short little post all about feelings being laid down.

Today we went to Nuremberg. This was the stop I least wanted to see…whacky energy here…the headquarters of the Third Reich. Nuremberg was the center of The Holy Roman Empire, the First Reich, and Hitler thought it fitting his Third Reich should reside there, and it was the place where thousands and thousands gathered for the infamous propaganda rallies. (BTW, the Second Reich was the German Empire that lasted for over 100 years up until the First World War.)

Anyway…again…it’s really whacky energy and moves one to tears when you see the huge grounds where those masses of people got all frenzied and where Hitler viewed the troops and all those crazy things. We also saw the SS Headquarters and where the Nuremberg trials were held. And we saw a re-built city…rebuilt to look like the old city because we, the Americans, bombed the shit out of it.

And I keep thinking about my Dad. Been trying to get some info about where he was from my two brothers, because I feel he could have been here. He was in the Third Infantry Division under Patton who was all over this area, according to Google, and I know he saw…things. He came home from the war with nightmares, a silver star and two bronze stars. You aren’t given those stars for sitting on the sidelines and twiddling your thumbs. And not many are handed out, either.

War sucks. Please, please can we all work hard at creating Peace? It starts in your heart. And kindly smiles.

Cool facts:

1) There is a warren of sandstone tunnels under the city made over hundreds of years by the citizens who used the cool below-ground tunnels as their refrigerators. So…seeing the writing on the wall, they prepared these tunnels as bomb shelters for themselves and their town treasures. Hence…their ability to rebuild as before. Hence…very few people died on account of them being all snuggled into their tunnels.

2) Would Hitler have approved? That is what the people ask when deciding what to do with the old Third Reich buildings. If the answer is “He would absolutely NOT approve,” then that’s what they’d do. Therefore, the old SS Headquarters is used for processing immigration paperwork and helping immigrants get settled. And the huge field where the rallies were held? Perfect venue for rock concerts and other festivals.

3) Every school age child is taught what our guide calls the Dark Period in recent history. Our guide, BTW, is studying to be a high school teacher and adores all history. She thinks it’s very important to teach the good and the bad without any rosy glow so the Dark Period will never exist again. the students’ field trips include mandatory visits to concentration camps. I feel the shame this Group of People feel at having been duped by a megalomaniac….but they had been so broken, discouraged, hungry, homeless, jobless having lost the First World War, and he promised a brighter future.

4) It is illegal in Germany to deny that the atrocities occurred.

5) This is my favorite cool fact— There is a Jewish Cemetery that has been around since the Middle Ages in the heart of Nuremberg that was never destroyed because it never occurred to the Nazis that such a cemetery would exist there.

No pictures today…well, maybe one…yummy things seen at the Marketplace, including a beautiful bride. Love survives.