While the people are warm, the city is shadowed by a tragic history. Those I’ve talked to seem to hate the Soviets more than the Nazis, though both left a grim legacy. Eighty-five percent of this city was leveled, kind of like an Alabama town after a tornado, but nature had nothing to do with this destruction. I teared up at the site of the Jewish ghetto. Awful, just awful. And that’s what a vacation should be about–the sins of the past.
WRITTEN 03/09/2013
