First Hand Nuremberg

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2001)

Moved to Nuremberg in 1957. Lived in an apartment building for U.S.Army officer's families. I learned the language and met many who said they dare not complain about Hitler's government or they would disappear like those who did. Perhaps I would have added to the film the story of the German Generals and officers waiting in Berlin for news of Hitler's demise by a bomb. Not only were these officers who tried desperately to upset Hitler's rule hung slowly by piano wire, but tortured first.
I left in 1961 with 3 babies born to me in Nuremberg and also my five yr. old from Massachusetts, all boys. (Years later in San Jose, they cried that they might be forced into the German Army. They had watched the TV series "Combat" with actor Vic Morrow). Now at the turn of the millenium World War II seems so long ago. If you go to virtualtourist.com and find Nuremberg or Berlin pages you'll find happy photos of travel throughout Germany by young people from all over the world in their 20's and 30's. (Spencer Tracy visited that same place in the film Mart where I had my first taste of Lebkucken cookies. Oh, wonder of wonders!) Seeing Marlene Dietrict playing a part, where she says, "We're all not monsters." is a tribute to her as she was in real life greatly oppossed to the Nazi.
Today, the Germans have a word for their concern about the Hitler era. They call it Vergangenheitbewaltegung. It means "coping with the past." They consider it a grim, unwelcome chapter in their history. When I visited the infamous "Dachau camp" in 1958, I stood in the gas chamber and scratched on the metal doors, trying to imagine what horror so many Jews and others endured. Ellie Weisel said: "Eleven million died in concentration camps, six million of which were Jews."
Quotes about war: How do people survive a war? I don't think they ever do. Audy Murphy, Most Decorated USA Soldier If we fight a third world war with nuclear weapons, we will be fighting the next war with sticks and stones. Albert Einstein Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Martin Luther King, Jr.