Nuremberg

Nuremberg Bavaria is one of the most interesting medieval German towns in the country. It has a unique combination of old and new, and it is popular to walk its cobbled streets while admiring the old churches and castles.

But Nuremberg is not just about historic charm—it also has a shadowy past, and any visit should include some time remembering both the atrocities committed in the city as well as the justice meted out at the Nuremberg trials. As a center for Nazi activity, Nuremberg became a rallying place for Nazi propaganda, and is where the Nuremberg Laws were passed, barring German Jews from citizenship. Today, you can visit the Reich Party Rally Grounds, an enormous area composed of vast open areas for soldiers to rally, a Congress Hall and other buildings built in the Nazi architectural style.

After the war, a series of tribunals, the Nuremberg Trials, were convened by the Allied forces to bring the leaders of the Nazi Party to account for their actions. In 1945, the Nuremberg Trials found hundreds of Nazis guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, conspiracy, and other atrocities that they had perpetrated during the war and the Holocaust. Today, the tribunals are immortalized at the Nuremberg Trials Museum in the Palace of Justice, a newly opened museum that exhibits the restored original courtrooms of the trials, as well as original documents and recordings of the historic court proceedings.

It was thought fitting that justice should be dispensed in the same location that Nazi atrocities were committed. Today as you wander through the streets of Nuremberg, it seems that the city has recovered from its sobering history, though the past is not forgotten. Don't forget to stop at the Way of Human Rights on your way through the city - it is an enormous monument designed by an Israeli artist, enshrining the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on its walls.