Germany Day 4

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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 got cold, then went inside the local bookstore. Of course, I couldn't understand any of the books, and yet I still found it fun to browse. However, German titles can only hold one's attention for so long, especially not yet knowing German, so I decided to find the shopping mall that George had told me about the night before. There were a couple of interesting shops, but everyone was still in the process of opening, so I retraced my steps back into the town center. I found a sports shop that was open, so I popped my head in there and ended up spending half an hour ogling the beautiful new ski designs. 😊 By that time it was almost 10:30, so I headed back to the hotel to meet up with Dad and George and head out toward München.

Once we'd met, packed up, and checked out, we hit the road toward Munich via Dachau. It was a fairly long drive today, but stopping at a huge rest stop for a bite of lunch and trying to count (and failing, I might add) the number of trucks on the Autobahn made it go pretty quickly. Seriously, the far right lane of the Autobahn is non-stop trucks for as far as the eye can see on any given day, and today was no exception.

By mid-afternoon, we'd reached Dachau, notorious because of the Dachau Concentration Camp. This was not a fun experience by a long shot-on the contrary, I don't know when I've been so horrified and ashamed of the human race-but it was a very important and powerful one. We got the audio guided tour (not actually that necessary-you could just look at the posters and exhibits everywhere and you'll get plenty of informaiton), and began to walk around the camp. First you walk along the outside of the camp, a barren space, with walls and machine guns pointed out along your right hand side. Then you see the notorious gate with the inscription (translated) "Work sets you free". Just passing through the gates as a visitor made me feel like a prisoner-I can't even begin to imagine how it would have felt as a running camp. Once inside, you are at the big square where everyone would have to line up twice a day until everyone in the camp was accounted for. Beyond that are rows upon rows of barracks-cramped, dirty, and hopeless. We looked around for a while, then went into the museum part of the camp-they have turned the main buildings of the camp into a history of the Holocaust (and particularly the work camps like Dachau) and memorial for the victims. They also show a movie about the horrors of the Holocaust-very powerful. By this time, everyone was starting to get a bit overloaded with horror, but we figured we needed to see the crematorium and gas chamber before we went. These gas chambers were never used (if people could no longer work, they were shipped off to Auschwitz), but it's still creepy. You walk inside as if you were one of the victims, then pass through into the crematoria-they still have the ovens.

But enough about Dachau. From there, we drove over to our hotel and checked in for the night. We were actually in an outset of Munich, close to the airport. We wandered into the town center to find some food and stumbled upon this great local restaurant. Dad and I splurged and split the Bavarian Feast-it was soooo good! Sausages, duck, kraut, potatoes, yummmmm.... Then back to the hotel and time to hit the sack-Munich in the morning!!!!

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Photos

entrance to Dachau
This is the official entrance to the camp

memorial plaque
a special thank you to all those who helped to liberate the camp

gate
the infamous gate ('Work sets you free')

upclose view of barrack
this is the building that the museum is housed in

far off view of barracks
this picture just repeats itself the whole length of the camp