Blogs from Dachau, Bavaria, Germany, Europe - page 2

Today, Vivi had to work (what with it being a weekday and her being a paid employee and all), so I was on my own for exploring. Thanks to her late night directions, I found my way all the way to another town using the S-train (I think this translates as the S-bahn, but don't quote me on that). Thankfully while I was very ineptly trying to force the ticket machine into submission, there was a local to my left doing the exact same thing. I can proudly say that I figured it out first! Though, this was mostly due to watching Viv get tickets twice and vaguely remembering what the ticket was called. Initial baptism by fire of ticket purchase complete, I arrived at Obermenzing and set off on the first leg of my many ... read more

I know that the title is Gerench (german-french). It's supposed to be. Also, I'm a tiny bit slap happy and sleep deprived from traveling for 14 hours straight and then being up all day wandering around the city. München, friends, is quite lovely. Rather picturesque even. This could be my sun and travel addled brain talking, but even on a rather warm day like today, it was lovely. Oh, and for the record they DO wear traditional garb (by which I mean lederhosen and the dress equivalent of lederhosen) to festivals. That is a thing. A fabulous, wonderful, glorious thing. Mostly due to my brain barely being able to process the anachronisms I saw wandering the street amongst the general populace all day. Things I saw today: Some fountain in the center of downtown Munich, which ... read more

Even the parking lot of Dachau bids an unusual peace and somberness. This is not Disneyland. This is far from the happiest place on earth. There is no rushing to get to the attraction, more of a humble stroll. Leave your cheerfulness behind for a moment, and enter a world of seriousness. Equipped with an audio-guide we enter the black iron gates where the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei” – Work Makes You Free – greets us to the camp where work was probably the only escape from hell, but where freedom was only a faint memory. A slap in the face in the shape of black iron letters. Just inside the gate is the main building, the administration building. Now a museum with enough items and information about Germany during the World War II in general, ... read more

Today, even though I was still tired from yesterday, I went with a group of friends from school to see the first Nazi concentration camp - Dachau Konzentrationslager. Seeing everything was more brutal than I thought. We walked the path that all the new inmates would have walked when they were sent to Dachau. On the gate to the camp was a sign that said “Arbeit Macht Frei”, which means “Work brings freedom.” After crossing the bridge and walking through this gate you were no longer a person, but a number. Out of the 200,000 prisoners sent here, at least 30,000 were killed. Some of the barracks inside were still intact or renovated and we saw the bunks and toilets and bathrooms of the prisoners. It was a freezing and wet day. Every time I thought ... read more

Day 23 and our trip to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial is a difficult day to write about. I want to share it with everyone back home, but at the same time it is hard to do that in a way that doesn't belittle genocide into my simplistic understanding of what happened in WWII. The Dachau concentration camp was the main reason we organised to come to Munich. It wasn't something we were excited about seeing, but it was something that we felt we needed to see. Especially after travelling through Europe for the last few weeks. We went on a tour as Dachau is a little bit complicated to get to, and we thought it would be a lot easier to go with someone who goes almost everyday rather than try and find it ourselves. ... read more