Untitled Page 127

OverviewTranscribeVersionsHelp

Facsimile

Transcription

Status: Complete

-5-

Then we took the train back to Nurenberg and I liked it better than Bamburg.
The old city is still very much intact, set off by the ancient city wall with
its moat and towers at each corner. Inspite of the war most of the inner city
is again as it is was for centuries before though there are also many buildings
built new, sort of disconnected with the age of the surroundings.

The youth hostel itself is an old Hollenzollern castle, several hundred years
old, but warm and comfortable. Most of the churches are Protestant and tomorrow
morning we are going to services at one which I will describe in more detail.
This afternoon we met an old man who guides American Express Agency tours
during the summer- quite an interesting old fellow- fought in French foreign
legion, spent ten years at Dachau (Hitler's worst prison camp), had known
Hitler casually here before he was politically powerful. Was a translator at
the Nurenberg war crimes trials. He showed us around to several spots with
marvelous side comments on otherwise unnoticed details. He is rich in the
history and folklore of Nurenberg as few others could be and we were lucky
indeed to have him show us around.

We walked across town (Nurenberg) yesterday morning stopping at the St.
Lawrence and the market place. Here in the market place is a beautiful golden
tower, intricately decorated with statues and carved animals. It was built
in about 1400 I think, intended to be the spire to the church. But it was too
lovely or too heavy, so they never put it up there but left it in the market
place and it was almost the only thing for a couple of blocks around not
flattened by the arirraids

January 21, 1960

Our four week days here would not be so bad- classes 8-12, and homework later.
But when you add in all the incidental activities which uses up our time, the
picture changes. For instance, this week-
Monday:
1-2 regular student meeting. 5-6 Receive students visiting from Stuttgart
Technical school 6:30 to 11:30, concert in Stuttgart.

Tuesday:
1-2 Music listening session 4:30-6 Chorus

Wednesday
4:30-6 Briefing by American Consul General of Stuttgart and 4:30-6, Chorus.

Last Sunday we got up early enough to make 8 o'clock church services. In Nurenberg we
arrived about 10 minutes early and found the inside of the cathedral only
partly lighted, the rest engulfed in predawn darkness. Soon they lit the
altar candles, far away to the front, whose light penetrated the surrounding
darkness for about 3 feet. Even more surprising was the fact that in this
huge beautiful cathedral, only about 30 people attended the service.
At first the dark and cold and emptiness seemed unpleasant and disheartening
but as the organ began to play and the light slowly seeped through the huge
choir windows to bring soft grays and finally warmer pinks to the stone
columns and arches, the marble sculpture and the old paintings here and there,
the cathedral and the service came to life together. The church is one of
the loveliest I have yet seen, in German Gothic, built of a rose pink stone
which warms the simple, almost austere Gothic columns and arches. The art work
is mostly marble sculpture, simple and realistic, and not so ornate as to

Notes and Questions

Nobody has written a note for this page yet

Please sign in to write a note for this page