I woke up and quietly got out of bed. This is not to say that typically I am particularly loud when waking up, but when sleeping in a room of 12, every creak, every twitch, every step is taking with incredible cautiousness. I caught a train to Nürnberg, which took only an hour. I walked along to the cobbled streets to my hostel.
The place is really wonderful, and I couldn't think of a nicer place to spend my last two days here.
I left my suitcase there, and then caught the tram to the former rally grounds.
Unlike Dachau, the rally grounds were something I had planned on seeing before leaving Vancouver. My uncle was here last year, and spoke incredibly highly about the museum there. The museum, or Dokumentationszentrum is built inside the former Congress Hall. The converted space is only a tiny portion of what was designed to be a 50,000 seat building. The museum is excellent, and really covers the history of both the Nazi’s but also of the actual rally ground space.
Nuremberg has a complicated history when it comes to the Nazis. Not only did it serve as a strong point for the party, and the place where the annual rally was held, but at the end of the war it served as the home of the Nuremberg trials. I’ve always been fascinated by the trails, but I have to admit that before today, I didn’t know much about the rally grounds other than the zeppelin field.
After the museum I walked the grounds. The former rally space has been converted into a park. Couples on dates, families there on saturday afternoon activities. This ultimately calls into the question of what to do with the spaces. All over the country, all over Europe, there are parts of the last 100 years that no one really wants to pay to preserve.
It's one thing to maintain Dachau as a memorial to the victims, but preserving the rally grounds is a different matter. Do we really want to preserve buildings ultimately used as a giant form of propaganda.
The large green park is growing in-between listed buildings that no one knows what to do with. After walking around a lake, with a carnival set up next door, I made it to the zeppelin field.
As I walked towards it I read a sign that explained the risks of the structure 10,000 Euros are put into maintaining the structure annually. But this is barely enough to keep the fence standing. It would cost 30 million euros to renovate, and as a result it’s falling down.
Just like in Dachau, all the space is owned by the government. This is in an effort to control any possibility of shrines being erected by neo-nazis. The large field has been subdivided and split-up leaving only the grand stand.
I sat on the very edge of the grand stand, and stayed pretty much there. There were others walking right up to the space where Hitler used to stand, but I had no desire to go anywhere near it.
After I finished on the grounds, I took the tram back to town. I checked into the hostel and relaxed for a bit.
Eventually, feeling a little peckish, I walked to the centre of town for some food. I found some pizza, and sat outside and people watched. I grabbed an ice cream cone, and walked the streets.
When you live so far removed from European culture, it’s easy to start categorizing cities and places in their most basic function. What surprises me about Nuremberg is that it is a real city. it’s not just Nazi rally grounds on one side, and a old cobbled street city on the other. There is very cool modern architecture, good food, and good people.
It’s been a very complicated two days for me. Emotionally trying, intellectually challenging, and physically taxing. After Dachau yesterday, and the rally grounds today, by this evening I was ready for some lighter thoughts. As the sun was setting, I leisurely and lazily walked through the streets, eating lemon sorbet so sour it stung the back of my throat, which just the way I like it. As I meandered it finally dawned on me that I really was on vacation. Only took me 41 days...
I came back to the hostel, and have spent the rest of the time writing while sitting on the floor.
Tomorrow in the morning I'm going to rest, and then explore the old town.
