Others in the audience were a group of German high school students. Toward the end of the documentary was a scene in which a high-ranking Nazi official claimed to have no knowledge of the extermination camps. He thought the Jews were being sent off to work, not to death. The moment the “ignorant” defendant said that, the students in the room burst into laughter. It took me a couple of seconds to understand what they were laughing at: a very obvious lie.I was unfortunately unable to visit Courtroom 600, where the tribunal took place, as it was under renovation, but I was able to spend some time at the Documentation Center.
The Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds is located in the north wing of the Congress Hall, designed like a huge Coliseum and planned by the National Socialists to hold 50,000 people. The building remained unfinished. The entrance of the building is a narrow stairway standing opposite the original concept of the building. A glass walkway 130 meters in length also diagonally pierces the north wing of the hall like a shaft and disrupts the rectangular stone construction symbolizing the National Socialists' demonstrations of power. The exhibition rooms remain unfinished in some places; some bricks were missing to underline the “banality” of the Nazi era.
The “Fascination and Terror” permanent exhibition explains the rise of the Nazi Party and its horror, terror and brutal violence toward humanity through various techniques. Large black and white pictures, some of them looming over visitors, sound effects and low lighting make visitors really feel the era. At one point you might feel like you're walking through the streets of Nuremberg while it was under bombardment.
Audio explanations in the language of one's choosing explain exhibit particulars. The information is available in English, French, Italian, Spanish and Russian, but unfortunately not in Turkish or Arabic -- the only, but very important, defect of the exhibition as far as I'm concerned.
The documentary I saw together with the laughing students was the last thing to see in the exhibition, and it really brought me relief, allowing me to walk outside again. While walking through the streets of Nuremberg, I thought about a conference at the University of Erlangen, Nuremberg, I had participated in the day before.
Just a few days before I participated in the “Turkish Week,” organized by very clever, cultured and kind University of Erlangen students, I was seriously disturbed to hear from a teacher friend of mine at a private university in Ankara that some of her students seriously admire Hitler.
I was not in a very bright mood before learning of this heartrending fact to begin with. Over the past several months, we have heard and read about many shocking events -- the latest being about a scandalous document titled the “Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism.” The Taraf daily last week published a piece on the document, allegedly prepared by the military and detailing plans to undermine the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement.
These and similar developments brought me to the point of hopelessness about the future.
But seeing the discussion level of the Erlangen students, their interest in Turkey, their open-minded attitudes and most importantly the students laughing at an obvious lie at the Documentation Center helped me regain hope.
Whether it happens in my lifetime or not is one thing, but I am sure that one day Turkey will form committees to confront the past, open museums in which military coup lovers and their actions will be explained to visitors and, most importantly, have high school students who will laugh at the obvious conspiracies and lies that we are being told nowadays.
Otherwise, what will be the use of this entire struggle for democracy and this feeling I and many others have that tells us we are members of a wasted generation?
Benzer Haberler 
