Why my parents left Germany after the war!

During World War II, American and British planes mercilessly firebombed the German city of Dresden, leaving an estimated 250,000 (?) people dead, most of them civilians — with bodies piling up so quickly that officials were forced to simply pile corpses in the city square and cremate them en masse for weeks on end. 

 Even after the dust settled, Dresden was largely left in ruins for decades. 

 Though volunteers quickly gathered to clear the rubble after the war, it wasn't until the early 1990s that rebuilding began in earnest. 

 The hard work undoubtedly paid off, and Dresden is now considered one of the most striking cities in the country.