Eurail day 14: Nuremberg

The main reason to come to Nuremberg, other than the rammed and jammed Christmas Market, is to learn about the Nuremberg Trials after World War II, the first trial of its kind where leaders were held accountable by the international community for their crimes against humanity.

I don’t know what I can say about the holocaust that hasn’t already been said better by millions of other people around the world, most notably those who survived the camps, but perhaps my photos here can add something.

It is very upsetting going to a place like this, so you always have to prepare yourself. I have been to the Jewish Memorial in Berlin, to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, to Dachau just outside of Munich, to the Jewish ghetto and Oscar Schindler’s factory in Krakow…. And when I was doing my Masters degree, I took a course in Life Writing where I had to read the first hand accounts of camp survivors and what they were subjected to daily. Also, I devoured Elie Wiesel’s book “Night” while I was on the train from Warsaw to Krakow…

We are always told to live our lives every day as if it were our last…. Especially since so much of what determines our last is out of our hands. Our lives are at the mercy of politics, of war, and those who hate us not for who we are but what we are. To actually acknowledge how much of our lives is out of our hands is too much for us to handle without curling up into the fetal position and crying. That’s why I’m glad I am doing this Eurail.com challenge. If tomorrow were my last, I can say I would have no regrets.

Get out there an explore, my little munchkins.

Here’s how I spent my €15 today: