The Past

Germany was a beautiful place when I lived there. I still can barely comprehend something as evil as a mass genocide occurred in a place that was home to my childhood. What’s always intrigued me is how every place you visit has such a deep history many don’t even think twice about. When I was living in Luxembourg, it was normal for me to walk on stone paved roads and see cathedrals on almost every corner. It wasn’t until one day in our Social Studies class I realized the stone roads were actually built from years of hard work from the Romans and the Cathedrals with bullet holes in them were from wars all the way back then too. There was a city nearby called Trier, and my family would go visit every once in a while. We loved going to see the big black monument in the middle of the town. For a little bit I had no clue what it was, and I would admire it superficially. Later that day my dad told me it was the gate to the city. It was stationed at the entrance to the town and whenever it went under attack the little slits throughout the wall were for men who would shoot their arrows through them. This changed the meaning for the entire place for me. If you walked a little further you would see a big circle stadium. You could tell it was old because it looked like it would fall apart if someone touched it. It turned out to be a gladiator fighting arena. Men, women and even children would go and watch these gladiators fight each other to the death. What blew my mind was how an activity so morbid could be considered an afternoon out. Since then, the past has always something I thought was very cool because it’s the foundation for how our world is today.