Blogs from Dachau, Bavaria, Germany, Europe - page 3

Hello Everyone, Yesterday I visited the Memorial at Dachau that is at the site of the former concentration camp. Dachau is infamous for being, not only the first concentration camp, but also the training grounds for the SS. The SS were Hitler's elite police/army who were in charge of the concentration camps all through out Germany and its territories. The SS training was for boys 16-19. It was basically training in torture. All of the future concentration camps used Dachau as a guide and the rules and regulations used in all the camps were drawn up there. Dachau was the only concentration camp open for all 12 years of the Third Reich, 1933-1945. Today I took a tour about the rise of the Third Reich in Munich. I learned a lot of things I never knew ... read more

Hello again everyone! Sorry it's been a couple of days since the last post-school is getting crazy! Dad and George both had meetings to go to this morning, so I slept in for an extra hour or so, had a lazy breakfast, and decided to explore the small town of Sindelfingen a bit. I walked for around 20 minutes or so to get to the town center-it is so picturesque! There are cobblestone streets everywhere, perfect cottages lined up in a row, I can feel the crunch of snow under my boots as I walk, the wind is brisk and cold but not biting, and the sun is out. How much better can it get?! There was a small farmer's market set up in the town square, so I explored the colorful overflowing bins until I ... read more

Tuesday 30th September Dachau Concentration Camp We arrived at the camp early and there were so many people and so many tour buses. Also surprising were the amount of Germany high school students. We hired some audio guide and started to walk around. There was a big museum like set up, with heaps of exhibits to read. The exhibits were set up in original rooms, so while you read and listened to the guide, you were also given the history of the room. After lunch which we had in the motor home, my Dad and I chose to do an English speaking tour which lasted about 2hours while Kurt who was feeling worse slept and rested in the motorhome. We found out some really interesting fact…. Dachue was a prison for German prisoners first!! Some of ... read more

Today we visited the Dachau Concentration camp remains from world war two. It was very interesting and very sobering. Some 200,000 people died in Dachau from 1933-1945. There are now a number of memorial buildings and sculptures on the site of the camp set amongst the remaining buildings, which include barracks, SS buildings, cell block, gas chambers and crematorium. It’s unbelievable what the prisoners were put through in the camp and that mankind can be so cruel to his fellow human race. We ended up spending the whole day at the camp going around the different sites and looking through the museum there. We also had an audio tour device that played back information about different locations and which also contained stories from some of the few surviving prisoners about what life was like in the ... read more

One Day: When we arrived at the train station, we went to our couchsurfing.com host's (Norbs) house, and he was not at home. When we called him he told us he had the dates mixed up for our arrival. He told us he would be home in the afternoon and we can come back then. Lucky for us, the train station had locker where we could store our stuff. We decided to just go back to the station, store our bags and head to Dachau to go to the work camp and catch up with Norbs when we got back. We left all our stuff, except what we would need for the night, in a locker (5 Euro) and set out for Dachau. While we were putting our stuff in the locker, a huge group of ... read more