On Day 4, we did nothing. We walked around Unterhaching & ate at McDonalds & played in the hotel play room, but we did not go anywhere. We were just too tired & too comfortable in our hotel room.
On Day 5, we went to Dachau, a concentration and prison camp just north of Munich, reachable by train. If you want to know more about the camp than what I will talk about here please visit Wikipedia for a run down. This camp was not what we, as Americans, think of when we hear the term. We think of places like Auschwitz in Poland and horrific images of children starving to death or being put to death by gas chamber, but Dachau has it's history and it was still a somber experience. One in which I am glad I had Maggie there to remind of the good in life.
How could you forget the good with this little bundle
of joy keeping you company?
Today though we set an alarm clock because it takes about an hour to get to Dachau from our hotel and we wanted time to be able to walk the grounds without rushing. So we got up and got ready. And went to the train. The day started with a snag in the plans as our train could not take us all the way to the train station in Dachau because someone had jumped on the tracks to commit suicide. This was explained on the train in German and it took someone coming up to us & talking in English for us to understand we needed to get off the train early & catch a taxi to the camp. And so that's what we did. We shared a taxi with a couple going to work & were pleased to find the taxi driver spoke excellent English & had a wonderful conversation on the way.
Once at the camp we ate sandwiches in the cafe & got coffee. After eating & heading to the entrance we quickly realized that the stroller we took sucks on gravel & made for a fun adventure through the camp, as most of the grounds are gravel. Maggie did enjoy being able to run free in the camp, although we tried to keep her quiet so others could absorb the depth of the experience in their own way. Just as we wanted to. Scott and I were amazed at the place & spoke very little except when we noticed something we thought the other would find interesting.
I cannot describe the feelings I felt while in the camp or reading of the horrors, but I will share the few things that stuck out most to me.
This camp was not used for mass murder, but there was a gas chamber and a hanging place. And much torture and beatings took place. One of the things that stuck out to me most was that one of the forms of torture included doing something I am very familiar with doing. The prisoners would be forced to stand at attention for hours or even days on end without food or water in the yard used for roll call. I do not believe I have ever stood at attention in the Army for longer than about an hour straight & so I can only imagine the torture it would be for the prisoners to stand there longer, not being allowed to help those that fell out or died in the yard because of the punishment. I prayed for there souls and told them all how sorry I was.
The next thing that struck me almost to silence was walking into the crematorium. This is where the prisoners would be cremated, sent to the "showers" (gas chamber), or hung. This is also where they would sanitize the clothing dead prisoners wore for use by the new prisoners coming into the camp.
These are the crematorium incinerators. 2-4 bodies could be
placed inside at once. Bodies were stored in piles in 2 rooms
adjacent to this room.
This is the beam that prisoners would be hung
from. This beam is directly in front of the
incinerators.
This is one of about 5 chambers that were used
to sanitize the clothing of dead prisoners. Sanitation
included piling the clothing in this chamber and gassing
it. Vents would be open to air out the chamber. I have been
through a gas chamber because of my Army training and know
first hand what putting on gassed clothing feels like. This
would not have been pleasant for incoming prisoners.
I was unable to take pictures of the gas chamber. It was designed to look like a shower room, complete with shower heads, as to trick the prisoners into their own deaths without any resistance. You had to walk through the chamber to get to other parts of the building. Adjacent to the chamber was the room in which the prisoners would undress and wait to walk to their own deaths, thinking they were about to receive much welcomed showers. When I walked into the chamber, I felt a sense of dread come over me that I have never felt before. It was an instant sadness and dread that I could never explain, except that all I wanted to was escape from the room and was saddened to silence for minutes afterwards.
The next form of torture for the prisoners was one that would have a lasting effect, even on those who lived, because this torture was in the form of suppression. The prisoners were required to keep spotless barracks and common areas. They were so scared of what would happen to them that the wood floors shined and not a prisoner dared to wear shoes within the building. Even the toilets had to be spotless. The floors shined so well that in a black and white photo taken just after the liberation of the camp you can see the floors shining. The floors were plain wood, not treated wood, so this was indeed a form of torture.
This is the common room of one of the barracks. Can you
imagine making that wood shine?
The only thing that put me at ease within the camp was knowing that those who died there in vain would never be forgotten. This is evident by the amount of people who toured the camp the same day we did as well as the number of memorials held within the camp itself.
These are just three of the memorials.
This was one of the few things on the trip I knew I must do. I could not go into Germany and not remember those who had fallen at the hands of the barbaric Adolph Hitler. I will never forget the horror of this camp and I only saw it through memorials and photographs and a few relics. I will never let this happen again and wish so much that I could help those who are threatened by genocide even in today's society. I will never forget.
We did however follow up this somber visit to Dachau with a dinner in the city. I ate crispy skin pork with sauerkraut and potatoes. This was the best meal I had while in Germany and I even enjoyed the sauerkraut.
Oh, but I should say that the trip back from Dachau to Munich and our hotel was VERY eventful. I was in charge of our train tickets that day & found them safely in my pocket all day long. I even checked my pocket before stepping on the train. Today though the train officials decided to walk around checking tickets. I reached in my pocket for the ticket & found it empty. EMPTY. I had somehow lost it in the five minutes before boarding the train. This loss of ticket costs us 80 euro and a trip off the train with the officials. I wanted to cry, but now I laugh. I would be the one to lose a ticket on the very day the officials check the tickets. During the rest our time in Munich, we saw the officials only one other time & they were not checking tickets. FIGURES because we had our ticket every other day.
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