a href=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-233339.jpgimg src=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-233339.jpg alt=20120108-233339.jpg class=alignnone size-full //abr /br /by Rich Landesberg with Elizabeth Kantlehner
For many, Nuremberg is a place where a 1961 Spencer Tracy/Burt Lancaster movie was situated. But for our students, it is a place they came to understand viscerally as the rallying point for the Nazis, and the place where justice was served on some members of that regime. This ancient village, which embraced the Nazi party and helped it rise to power, also held the genocide trials that lead to the modern interpretation of human rights and the justice courts still holding trials in the Hague. One of our students volunteered to write about what she saw today:
WHERE THE NAZIS RALLIED…AND WHERE THEY WERE TRIED
by Elizabeth Kantlehner
Today was another early day for us, as we needed to catch the 8:24 train from Frankfurt to Nüremburg, the home of the Nazi Parade Grounds (Reichsparteitagsgelände) and the Nazi Documentation Center (Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände). We quickly realized that the Germans still put lots of emphasis on the class system in certain scenarios; for example, the trains in Germany are still split up into classes. Though we were in second class, and had to change trains once, the trip to Nüremburg went surprisingly fast, and before we knew it we were all crammed into taxis heading towards the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände.
The tour through the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände told the story of Hitler’s rise to power, and all the various factors that allowed him to become so powerful so fast. Throughout the museum there was a odd combination of terror and awe, for it is unimaginable to us to see some of the things that the Nazis did to “unworthy people”, such as the Jews and Roma people, while millions of Germans stood by silent. We have all grown up leaning about Nazi Germany, and hearing about the Holocaust, but standing in an uncompleted Nazi replica of the Colosseum made everything so much more real, and terrifying.
After visiting the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände, we all climbed back into the taxis and went to visit the court where the Nüremburg trials were held, the Memorium Nürnberger Prozesse. Though the original courtroom was completely changed after the trials by the Bavarian government, Courtroom 600 still exists, and is still an active courtroom. We were able to sit where the prosecutors during the trials sat, and see a 30-ton iron cross that has been hanging on the wall since before the trials. Once again, sitting in the seats that people sat, and being able to imagine the terror that these people caused, makes the regime so much more real. Upstairs, we were able to walk around and see the stories of the people who were tried, and what their verdict was. The original benches were the prisoners sat were upstairs, as well as the boxes that all of the evidence was kept in during the trial. In my opinion, the most interesting part of the museum was the room that explained that the groundbreaking cases in Nüremburg created a precedent for the International Criminal Court today, and because of these cases, people are being brought to justice for the crimes again humanity that they caused, including the former interim Prime Minister of Rwanda Jean Kambanda.
It was a long, exhausting day, but was worth it to see so much important history in one day. We ended the day by taking the train back to Frankfurt, and some of us went with Drs. Morgan and Landesberg to eat dinner at an Australian restaurant, where some adventurous people decided to try kangaroo (apparently it is tougher to chew than most meats but tastes good). Tomorrow morning we have an appointment at the European Central Bank, than it is off to Brussels, Belgium for the next adventure on our study of the European Union.br /br /a href=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-232833.jpgimg src=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-232833.jpg alt=20120108-232833.jpg class=alignnone size-full //abr /br /a href=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-232859.jpgimg src=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-232859.jpg alt=20120108-232859.jpg class=alignnone size-full //abr /br /a href=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-233258.jpgimg src=https://eloneu12.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120108-233258.jpg alt=20120108-233258.jpg class=alignnone size-full //a
Here is what you are looking at:
Some of our students at the Nazi rally grounds, now a museum
Our students outside the court
Elon in the EU 2012 