Hamburg

On the way home from the vacation we stopped in Hamburg. We had a good time. So we went to Hamburg to go to this haunted house thing the girls wanted to go to. It was actually pretty cool. It wasn't a normal haunted house. The theme was that you went back in time to times when Hamburg was troubled and see if you survive kind of thing. So it went back to four periods of time. The Plague, the Crusades, a large fire, and pirating. It was really cool cause I could learn a little of Hamburg's past.

This picture is just of the top of one of the buildings. A lot of these buildings in Hamburg are very old and a lot of them have these toppers. It was very pretty to see all the old architecture.

This picture is of the canal that goes through the city.

But before that, we had some time and Dagmar said her brother had told her of a place he wanted to show me. We decided to visit it. It was an old burned down cathedral. It's called St. Nickolai. It burned down in the summer of 1943. Hamburg was bombed by the British in what was called Operation Gomorrah. They bombed for about 6 days straight and pretty much 3/4 of Hamburg was burned to the ground. All that was left of this cathedral was one wall and the bell tower. They have reconstructed the inside of the bell tower so you can go the top, but they left it all black, there are no windows or anything left of it's former glory. Bellow, they have built it a memorial to WW2. It was heartbreaking. Over 40,000 people died that night.

These are of the couryard. You can see the other wall that was left standing.

Isn't the architecture beautiful.

This is what is meant by a Glockenspiel. We've been mistaken.

These are all pictures from the top of the belltower. The pictures of the black and white pictures are of Hamburg after the fire, the destruction of the city.

These were statues in the courtyard. Sometimes these blogs don't turn out the way I want them to so I will explain a little. The tall woman with the hands is the Angel on Earth, the boy is The Ordeal. This brightly colored photo is a picture I took of a postcard I bought. I coudn't get good ones because as you can tell, it was not exactly a clear day that day.

This is a replica of the stained glass windows that used to be in the church.

This is a picture of what the church used to look like.

I

really liked this quote.

So this was my favorite plaque that I saw there. It was very sad, and it all made me cry. This plaque, I can't remember all of it and only a portion can be seen in this photo. But it told of all the people that died and then says that the world will never forget the horrors that were caused by a group that was hungry for power and the injustice they brought upon the whole world. Down in the corner, here in this other picture, it says Vater vergib... which means, Father forgive...

This is written in old German. It says:

Tue deinen Mund auf für die Stimmen und für die Sache aller die Verlassen sind.

It basically means to have a moment of silence for the voices and things of all those that were left behind, or abandoned.

I figured since there were only 3 pictures of this I would just put them up too. This is of Mimi's baptism. The family of course. And then the guy holding the door in the other picture is Opa (Grandpa) Schumaier. He looks kind of scary in that picture but he's super nice.

So I think I am almost caught up, just in time to get behind again! For any of you who keep up with this, sorry that it takes me so long. If your internet was as slow as mine, you'd understand! I love you all and miss everyone!