Richmond Hill High School - Archway / Dome Yearbook (Richmond Hill, NY)

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New fmpvessiorts of germany Summer, 1936 ----By PETER i4oENioEi2--- to Germany on a ship crowded above its normal capacity because of the coming Olympic Games. The boat, the Motorship St. Louis , was the same slow, comfortable little liner on which l had gone the year before. It was like old times to see the same sailors and stewards and to swim in the same large, open air pool again. The water was like glass for the entire crossing, except along the Irish coast, where we had rough and rainy weather. After passing Land's End it cleared again and when we reached Cuxhaven the sun was shining brightly down on the five Olympic rings and the huge HWelcome sign on the pier, and on the dozens of potted fir trees placed along the walk to the station to make our arrival more festive. ln the special train which took the passengers from Cuxhaven to l-lam- burg was an old lady who had come to America sixty years ago when she was a girl of fifteen, and was now going back on a visit for the first time. A number of her relatives from a tiny village in Hessen-Nassau had come to meet her, all speaking in a very broad dialect and wearing still broader smiles, and all with her snapshot pinned to them so that she should not fail to recognize them. The contrast between these people with their simple country dress and country ways and their American relative with her smart clothes, high-heeled shoes, bobbed hair and ruby finger nails, was very striking and one couldn't help wondering how the visit would go off. From Hamburg we went straight on to Berlin, which was already in Qlympic dress, although the games were more than two weeks distant. The hundreds of red banners with black swastikas gave an almost Japanese atmosphere to the scene. We took a trip out to the l2eichssportfeld , which was to be the scene of the Qlympics. Workmen were busy every- where adding the finishing touches, but the main stadium, seating 100,000 spectators, was already finished and in the swimming stadium we saw the Japanese team practising diving. The open air theatre was particularly beautiful, for its seats on the hillside commanded a wonderful view of the surrounding country. Next came a visit to the old university town of Jena, in central Germany, where l attended some classes and lectures at the end of a vacation course for foreigners. Most of the lectures were about German literature, but there were also nice trips to surrounding places of interest. We visited the famous Zeiss Cptical Works, which have the only skyscraper in the city, one fourteen stories high. Of course we were taken to the top to see the grand view. Another trip was to Weimar, where Germany's two greatest THE SENIOR DOME Page'l4 I llxl the fourth of July of this year l was again on the way

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and clearer. The air too is snappier, jerking up your chin, inflating your chest, putting a spring in your walk, a Iilt in your voice, and a flash in your eyes. Autumn, the stimulating, gorgeous climax, has been reached. The leaves have fallen, making a crisp crackle, like dry, brittle paper being crushed, under their first strange tinge of snow, as two hikers stride silently over it. Continuously the white flakes float down, making a thick blanket covered with a deep crust. The crush of skiis vies with the slicing whirr and clank of ice-skates and the grinding and jingling of sleds. The crackling and bursting of a stirring fire have an allure almost as powerful as the exhilarating, intense atmosphere seeking entrance at every window and door. f Who is able to decide, irrevocably, which his favorite is out of such a galaxy of differing and fascinating delights? GENIUS .... Supreme and exquisite they are to his deft touch, A never-ending mystery of life and death, To him-a gem that breathes on secret air, A voice that cries in stifled breath. His soul but whispers-sweet the words, To fall on ears of speechless man, The Heavens saturate his will, Lend color to his aching pen. The mellow rapier shapes the thrust, A symphony of treasured art- And so, on borrowed thought, it wings, A secret closer to our hearts. James Percival THE SENIOR DOME l3age'l3 iv

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poets, Goethe and Schiller, had lived, and then there were trips to a labor camp and to a B. D. M. CBund Deutscher Maedell camp. At this latter, which might be compared with our Girl Scout camps, the girls served us supper and showed us over the whole camp, after which they en- tertained us with follc-songs and follc-dances. ln return for this the Danish members of our course sang songs of their country, and a young Scot played Scotch tunes on the piano. When the girls found out that it was the birth- day of the little round Welshman in our party, they brought in a candle for him and we all sat around the hugest round table l ever saw and celebrated. The poor fellow had to stand up and malte a valiant attempt at a speech in German. We finished up the vacation course with a farewell get-together at the Blaclt Bear Hotel, where Martin Luther had stayed when in Jena. The groups from each country sang follc-songs-people from Denmarlc, Sweden, Finland, England, Scotland, Wales, France, ltaly, Switzerland, Turlcey and the United States. Our group, which besides us contained a young couple Hom lflarvard and a student from some other college, sang Home on the ange . 'falcing a roundabout route to reach Wuerzburg, l had the opportunity to go over the Wartburg at Eisenach, where Martin Luther translated the Bible, and to see the splendid Hall where the lVlinnesaenger held their contests, the rooms of St. Elizabeth, of whom the story of the miracle of the roses is told, and the room in which Luther worlced, where the plaster had been torn from the wall by souvenir-hunters at the spot where he is said to have thrown an inlc-stand at the devil. Wuerzburg, the city of Rococco, which l had lilced especially last sum- mer, again impressed me with its pleasant atmosphere - the old fortress on the terraced hillside rising up over the winding River Main, the ancient, four hundred year old bronze crane, the many old hospitals and charitable institutions with their wealth of vineyards, the dozens of churches and the magnificent palace of the Prince Bishops with its ceilings painted by Tiepolo and its lovely formal garden. Cnc cannot stay in Franconia for any length of time without becoming acquainted with its Boclcsbeutel wine, its Rococco and Baroque archi- tecture and the worlcs of Riemenschneider, the master stone and wood carver of the sixteenth century. To me Wuerzburg seems to possess the best of all these. A visit to Rothenburg proved that this little medieval town is everything the guide boolcs say about it, and still nicer. There are not merely one or two old houses, but the whole town is full of buildings from the middle ages, still the same as when built, while the old city walls are in almost perfect condition. The half-timbered and gabled houses, old stone fountains, apothe- caries shops with their quaint signs and the ancient churches with tombs of lcnights gave a picture of the middle ages. After passing thru Bamberg again, with its beautiful thirteenth century cathedral, and thru Rudolstadt, where l was able to visit an