Tag Archives: Nuremberg

International news

Re-discovering rail travel

NUREMBERG, Germany — I am pleased to announce that I have rediscovered the joy of traveling locally by train.

I also am prepared to declare that Europeans know to run a train system. The Nuremberg network of rail lines is many things: it is quiet, it is environmentally efficient, and it damn sure runs on time.

The trains here run on electricity, which the Germans obtain chiefly through solar, wind and hydropower. They use a bit of fossil fuel. There isn’t a nuclear power plant to be found in Germany, unlike in neighboring France, which relies heavily on nukes to heat homes and keep the lights on.

I have been taking the train daily from the village of Weitersdorf, where my friends Martin and Alena live with their three children. I ride the train into town, usually with Martin as he goes to work each day. Me? I am free to roam about the city of 500,000 residents on my own.

It’s a 20-minute walk from the house to the station in Rosstal. We quick-step in time for the train to take us downtown to the massive central station, from which trains fan out across Bavaria … and beyond.

My bride and I got acquainted with the train system on our first visit to Nuremberg in 2016. On that visit we took a train to Amsterdam to see more friends in The Netherlands. That trip, too, was an exercise in cold-steel efficiency. We managed to navigate our way through a train line transfer en route to our German friends’ home.

All of this is my way of hoping that eventually we can develop a train system that is as expansive and efficient as what we have seen in this beautiful region of Germany. Yes, we have Dallas Area Rapid Transit.

But … we hear too often about train lines being “down for repair.”

These folks here know how to keep the trains running on time.

International news

They face their grim history daily

names-of-victims

NUREMBERG, Germany — My friend Martin lays it on the line.

“We know more about the Holocaust than anyone,” he said. “We confront our history every single day.”

And there it is in front of them, standing out among the other edifices Nuremberg residents see every day as they go to work, go home, travel with their children … or perhaps as they visit what’s called the “Documentation Center.”

It is a large building constructed during the era of the Third Reich. It is built in a size that, according to Martin, is meant to demonstrate “the superiority” of the Nazis who ruled Germany for a dozen years from 1933 to 1945.

There’s more than enough shame to go around in Germany. Martin reminded my wife and me that Nuremberg was one of Adolf Hitler’s two favorite cities; the other one was in Munich.

The Documentation Center chronicles the Holocaust, Hitler’s “final solution” to the existence of Jews in Germany and the rest of Europe.

It’s popular among foreign tourists — notably Jewish citizens — who come here to see for themselves how the Germans “document” what happened during the Holocaust.

Martin said the center receives roughly 1 million such visitors annually. The Germans don’t hide this hideous part of their history, Martin said. Yes, he reminded us, they are ashamed of what happened under Hitler’s reign of terror, but there’s no point in brushing it aside.

The picture I posted at the top of this blog is of cards containing the names of victims who were sent to concentration camps. Many of them went to death camps, never to be seen again.

Nuremberg was all but destroyed by American and British bombers during World War II, Martin reminded us. Much of the city was rebuilt. It is a lovely city now. Not all of us was turned to rubble.

Indeed, one of the structures that remain from that dark period is the hall where the Nazi murderers were put on trial. Most of them were put to death; some were sent to prison for the rest of their lives. Still others took their own lives before facing the justice they deserved.

Another is the site where we toured the Documentation Center, where Germans live with this terribly dark chapter in their country’s rich history. It was written by the monster shown below.

hitler

I’m glad we came here to see for ourselves how a great nation deals a historical chapter its citizens likely would rather forget.

They look it straight in the eye.