In search of the Third Reich

SOMEWHERE IN GERMANY, Oct. 17--

Wilson, here. For the past 24 hours I've been confined in a dark, suffocating container with no light. I was stuffed into a very confining tote bag and then placed into that container, pressed from all directions without room to move.  It was like being in a cattle car, except I was alone. The last time I was aware of daylight, I was in Seattle. Then I was packed and jostled and had a sense of moving, very fast.

 
If I had ears, I think they would have popped at times. I heard a great whine, and then a constant dull roar that went on for what seemed like hours. Then there was this feelng of floating down, followed by a bump and a thud. After that, I heard voices that sounded like people speaking from the back of their throats.

  When I saw dayight again, the sky was overcast and rainy. The buildings were strange and rocky with sharp angles. Some  of them confined very narrow streets,which were quite bumpy and made lots of noise when cars drove over them. I clearly was in a city, but it is like no city I've ever  seen before. It looked very old, and it had its own castle.

They call it Nuremberg. From what I've been able to gather, it's about the size of Seattle -- 500,000 -- making it the second largest city in an area called Bavaria. And it's been around for quite a while.  According to Wikipedia, it is first mentioned in a document dating to 1050, where there was an imperial castle. Over the next 500 years it expanded and became more important because it was located on key trade routes. It has been referred to as the "unofficial" capital of the Holy Roman Empire. It's also been associated with another empire, one that was supposed to last for 1,000 years, but for many people, it only seemed like 1,000 years.

(By the way, as I draft today's message, the Deutschland seems to have cursed my blog with unwelcome popups on my Internet pages, with confusing messages in a confusing language and with links that I never created inserted directly into text. If you American readers see any strange formattin, it  is wholly the folly of some sort of Teutonic gremlins, metaphorically, the trolls under the bridge that want to make passage difficult. Sorry about them, but I haven't got any inclination to pick a fight with the European Internet. It is what it is.)

I told you there's a castle right inside the city. Here's one view of it from a street near the place I'm staying with Robert and his son and daughter-in-law:

Here's another striking building just over a waterway

And check out how the stone masons seemed to just hang some little alcoves right on the side of this building:

Take a look at that scroll-type image off to the left. Would you believe it? It's actually what they call a sun dial. The shadow cast by that metal rod over the image actually helps you figure out what time it is. There are lots of those in Nuremberg. Check out this one:

And this one looks like a big grinning mouth beneath some windows that look like smiling eyes:

That's kind of playful. Nuremberg looks like it's just full of good natured artisans.  Although some of the food can be uninteresting (a glass of beer in a brewery restaurant was nothing to write home about compared to the beers you get in Seattle), Robert was able to purchase some really fine cheeses last night. But they weren't German. I guess there are some benefits of being located on a trade route.

But there's something about this place that makes me wonder. For instance, look at this playful fountain in the center of the neighborhood where we're staying:  I think it's supposed to tell the story of married life. This first image shows the man and wife and the lovely children:

But by the time you get around to the other side of the fountain, a different story emerges. Talk about rought sex! (Wow! Was it good for you?) And what's that amphibian with teeth all about, anyway?

There's more yet to discover about this city. For example, this piece of stark, angular art is quite a contrast from the buildings behind it. Shades of 2001, A Space Odessey!

And when you take a closer look, you see this engraving in one wall of the art. I don't read German, but there's a word that jumps out at you: deportation.

And then not very many blocks away, there's this sign: Now that's really strange. Why would they have a sign saying "Jew street," when there are almost no Jews in Nuremberg? Almost none. What happened here?

This unofficial seat of the Holy Roman Empire city hasn't always been Jew-friendly. For example, in 1298, according to Wikipedia, , the Jews of the town were accused of having desecrated the host, and 698 of them were killed in one of the many Rintfleisch Massacres. Behind the massacre of 1298 was also the desire to combine the northern and southern parts of the city, which were divided by the Pegnitz river. The Jews of the German lands suffered many massacres during the plague years. In 1349, Nuremberg's Jews were subjected to a pogrom. They were burned at the stake or expelled, and a marketplace was built over the former Jewish quarter. Killing the Jews didn't seem to do much to stop the plague, which returned in  1405, 1435, 1437, 1482, 1494, 1520 and 1534.

Apparently Jews were pretty resilient, because they were still living in Nuremberg as recently as 80 years ago. But now there are almost no Jews left in the city, according to my hosts.

This bears consideration...

Love,

Wilson

and Robert