Pforzheim, the Gold City, Destroyed in 20 minutes

Last Monday I visited Pforzheim, Germany and hiked up mount Wallberg, a hill built from the debris and garbage of the devastated city after WWII. The hill is now precisely that, a grassy hill overlooking the city. On top is a monument - several three-sided silver pillars that show the city before the bombing, after the bombing, and how it looks today. The beauty of a laboriously designed city was destroyed in February of 1945 by the Royal Air Force leaving the city with only 2,000 survivors. The bombing took twenty minutes. Now the city is replaced with the coldness and practicality of a modern city, sadly unremarkable.

Pforzheim does still display those distinctly German characteristics - colorful flat buildings, cobblestone walkways, a "marktplatz", 1-2 distinctive churches, fountains adorned with bold-faced "kein trinktwasser" badges of practicality.

But I could feel the coldness of the beauty of the past seeping up between the cracks of the cobblestone streets from an underground well of something like shame, immediately evaporated by the neon signs and advertisements of modernity.

Pforzheim was one of the centers for Germany's gold and jewelry productions pre-war and was bombed multiple times. Today, the city still boasts many jewelry stores and harbors pride in its "golden" reputation.

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It is remarkable, however, how such a large living and breathing city can be destroyed so quickly. It is frightening - the world can decide in a matter of minutes if you survive or if you perish. And then what remains, what is left of your little life, is swept up into a heap and becomes overgrown with trees and bushes - you become a memory.

This can happen, too, with little pieces of your life, of your personality. Something you thought was so concrete can be metaphorically bombed into oblivion and you are left with the shock, the uncertainty, and the broken pieces - what do you do? Do you rebuild and try to replicate what has been lost? Do you build a monument, acknowledge what you had is gone, and become something different, maybe something better?  Do you live among the ruins and hope that someday something beautiful will grow out of the pits of destruction?