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Published: December 22nd 2006
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Traveling to Munich through Dachau: The Shadow of Tragedy
Cold Day, Warm Car Since last night was an early one to home and bed, we were up bright and early to eat our (free, yay!) breakfast and get on the road. Mike’s new addiction is bread with butter and honey on it, while I’m all about the yogurt with muesli - German granola. I think it’s great . . . Mike grumbles at the loud crunchiness of it (for all that know him well, this makes sense) so early in the morning.
Over the last couple of days, it has been getting consistently colder and colder. We’ve been gifted with some great clear, blue sky days, but those days are also the coldest ones. We jumped straight into the car after breakfast and headed out of Dinkelsbuehl - with me holding Tom Tom out the window so it could get a good GPS signal and map our course. Boy, was I glad to pull my hand back in . . . cold!
I’ve been mapping our route in Tom Tom so it avoids freeways and gives us a plan that takes us through
The Showers at Dachau
This room was used as the first shower for prisoners. This was not a gassing room like some other Concentration Camps. lots of German country roads and the small towns. While very picturesque and beautiful, it adds between 10-25%!e(MISSING)xtra drive time. The funny thing was that Mike didn’t know I had programmed it that way so he’s asking himself “what’s up with all the little roads? I thought Germany had a highway system . . . ?!?” Hee, hee.
Dachau, where history should never be forgotten Our plan today was to stop in the town of Dachau to visit the concentration camp memorial there on the way to Munich. Dachau is a town is a lovely place, full of nice shops and pedestrian shops. As nice as it is, it can never escape the history of its name and what history was made in that area.
Dachau was a work camp in WWII that was used for imprisoning political prisoners, Jews and undesirables (gypsies, homosexuals and more) by the SS in Nazi Germany. It was not an extermination camp specifically - they had a gas chamber built, but never put it into use - but their purpose was to work the prisoners to eventual death. To the officers of the camp, an individual life of
a prisoner had zero intrinsic value. Besides being a camp of torture and pain, Dachau was also the center of SS training for officers of other camps in the Third Reich, such as Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. Essentially, any element of the atrocities that were committed across the camp system had their origins in the grounds of Dachau.
The organization of former Dachau prisoners has made a concentrated effort to preserve the grounds of Dachau in order to teach future generations about what man can do to man when evil is allowed into power. We walked through the door where prisoners were brought in from cattle car trains through the door inscribed “Work shall set you free,” horrible sarcasm from the Nazi officers to the prisoners. We walked across the (very) cold open ground where all prisoners were forced to stand in thin uniforms for roll call every day, standing for hours until people collapsed with exhaustion and fatigue. The former operations buildings have been filled with museum exhibits on the history and daily life for prisoners in Dachau. It wasn’t an easy museum to walk through, but we learned a lot.
We also walked through the barracks
where prisoners were kept. In 1938, the camp was built to hold 6,000 men. By the time the US military liberated it in 1945, they were holding 32,000 people in the same size housing. By the end, there were no longer beds of any sort, but large boxes that were stacked 3 high like bunk beds and men were just jammed in next to each other like cords of wood. Once again, the value of the individual was zero in the camp view, so they were treated like animals to be herded.
As the last piece of the visit, we walked through the crematorium and (unused) gas chambers. I had a hard time even standing within the walls because I could feel the evil around me and the tragedy that was perpetrated here. It’s hard to express, but it’s not something I will forget easily.
We spent over 2 hours in the camp and finally left in the mid-afternoon - quiet, hungry and cold. It seemed appropriate to understanding the experience of those that lived there.
On to the booming metropolis of Munich We stopped in a little café in the town of Dachau
Kel Standing in a Foundation
To give some idea of space, this building (only the foundation shown) actually housed 1000 prisoners by the end of the war. It was built for only 200. for lunch before getting on the road to Munich. It’s always an adventure when we drop into a little place that isn’t used to tourists - we point at something that looks good and hope for the best. I ordered what I thought was a sausage on a bun and instead got 4 large hot dogs and a roll. They were good, but still a surprise!
Driving in Munich is craziness. It has the crazy winding roads of Boston with honking and pedestrians going and bikes riding and mopeds weaving . . . nuts! After a couple of false turns, we got to the public parking garage and made our way to our hotel. It’s a funny area - the hotels are interspersed with naked lady bars and naughty book stores. Strange. Our hotel is on the 5th floor of a nondescript building (all of the above occupying the 1st floor) but it’s clean and quiet and very nice.
We headed off to the TI and then the Christmas market. It’s situated in a square overlooked by a beautiful Gothic church and old buildings. With the Christmas lights, it’s truly gorgeous. They also had children singing for the
Propoganda Photo of Roll Call
This picture does not tell the true story but does give an idea of what roll call each morning was like. crowd from a balcony on the church - the closest that I’ve ever seen to what I picture a chorus of angels being. With the smells of food and Christmas trees, it’s more than a little bit magical.
We grabbed dinner in a local beer hall - they actually sat us at a table with 3 older gentlemen. They nodded at us, we smiled back at them, and then everyone went back to their own conversations. We both really like being in places that aren’t full of tourists . . . even if it means we never understand anything going on around us.
We’ll be in Munich through tomorrow night and then it’s off to Fussen, our Christmas home. Hope your Christmas shopping is almost done . . . have a great day!
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Bruce / Daddy
non-member comment
Mike and Kel, Your day sure was one of contrasts. At the beginning you were being exposed to the horror and evil of Dachau. At the end of the day you got to see goodness and beauty in a children’s angelic choir singing from a balcony on a church. I’m sure such experiences will produce lasting impressions. Have a blessed Christmas in Fuessen. My favorite words from the Christmas story are “Good news of great joy”.