Travel Tuesdays: Nuremberg

Dear Travelers,

Today I invite you to accompany me through the streets of the ancient city of Nuremberg, Germany.

The name "Nuremberg" is practically synonymous with the Nuremberg Trials that took place after World War 2, in which the war criminals of the Nazi regime were tried and sentenced by an international tribunal. The reason Nuremberg was chosen for the trials is because it had been the symbolic center of the Nazi movement. The creepy nighttime rallies lit by torches were held here in the great amphitheater.

But the Reich that was supposed to last a thousand years fell after only 12. Concentration camps were bulldozed and housing communities built over them. And the amphitheater was converted into a museum, so that this evil would never be forgotten or repeated.

When I visited the museum, I had this unsettled feeling between knowing it was important to remember, and wanting it all to be destroyed without a trace. I couldn't believe I was walking through the place where all those swastikas waved amid the euphoric heil Hitlers, where an entire nation was swept up in a frenzy that justified the slaughter of millions.

Even long before the Nazi regime, Nuremberg had a dark history. Jews were persecuted since the middle ages, and the bubonic plague hit the city multiple times.

Towards the end of my time in Malta, I asked my film teacher what my next move should be. He suggested moving to Germany, and at the same time my sister was planning to come to Germany to study, so for a while it looked like we might be living together in Nuremberg. As it turned out, that didn't happen--I ended up in a small town in the south of Germany--but I did go to visit my sister in Nuremberg a few times.

My feelings about this city are mixed. I had some good times there with my sister, but I also took part in a film project there that was a very painful experience and ended in disaster. At the end of the day, I'm glad I got to see it, but I'm also glad I didn't end up living there.

One funny thing that happened to me in Nuremberg: one day I decided to take a walk all the way around the old city wall. At one point I saw a girl sitting in an open window. I thought it was strange, but maybe it was a cultural thing. A few steps farther down the street I saw another girl in a window, and noticed that all the people in the street besides me were men. I had wandered into the red light district. Oops.