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Buchenwald
The entrance where time has stopped.Wednesday 1 July 2015
After a peaceful night and a rare hotel breakfast we packed the car and took the road to Buchenwald. What an enjoyable drive through thick forest. The road in takes several forms, cobbles, concrete and smooth hot-mix asphalt. What a contrast. The concrete had been laid by the inmates of Buchenwald and was nicknamed "Blood Road". We wondered about the cobbles. It took us back four years to a time when we drove on a Polish cobbled highway.
On reaching the camp we noticed most of the buildings have long since disappeared. Standing there looking over the site we had mixed feelings. If a holiday camp had been built on the sight it would have been perfect, such were the views across the open countryside. This camp was a work camp, strange title when over 50,000 inmates died. Many groups of school children were being taken on tours of the camp. We hope they get an understanding of the enormity of what went on here and the other camps across Europe. We wondered how many of their ancestors were at the camp, either as inmates or guards. There is a lot of work being undertaken
Buchenwald
Not much is left, just a few buildings. to improve the memorials built during the 1950s. At 12 noon a bell tolls. Is this time to move on.
The rest of the day is spent driving the A9 and A10 to Berlin. We pass close to Leipzig, a city we visited previously. There are the compulsory autobahn stops just to break the monotony of the drive. If we had time we might have deviated onto a B road but we wanted to get to the hotel before rush hour.
The hotel is on Rudower Strasse, Berlin. Who would have thought, in the city as big as this, there would be more than one street with the same name. Not us. Fortunately we were only 6 kilometres from our destination and with some interesting driving through areas in need of rejuvenation we soon reached our hotel for the next four nights. The car will be grateful for the rest.
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