The Dark and Light Side of Weimar

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So waking up early this morning I figured I would check out Buchenwald, it is only 8 Km from the ccentral station. There was an hourly bus that ran there so if you were late by 5 minutes you had to wait an extra hour. But arriving to the camp you go into the information center and they send you first to a short 30 minute movie showing hourly. It was very interesting and my school actually a few months ago had a survivor from Buchenwald come speak, he was a Polish Jew sent to multiple work camps and survived the death marches too. What surprised me about Buchenwald was how isolated it was, the Nazis chose this location because of that reason and to keep things away from the public. The camp started small but was massive, it took over 2 hours to see it all. Most of the camp has been destroyed and the allies bombed the factories there that lead to 400 prisoner deaths and some SS guards as well.

The camp itself was just overwehlmingly large though, in the woods if you look closely there are still some old fencing, in the back of the camp there are around 450 medal poles all numbered marked "unbekannt" or unknown, for Russian soldiers that where found and killed in the back of the camp. There were also crosses to the Germans where were discovered and killed as well. Quite erie over all but very educational.

I ended up checking out the state museum which had an exhibit on the Weimar government, I did not realize the importance of Weimar to both democracy and the foundation of the Nazis as well. The city can be erie but also beautiful, the park along with Goethes garden house. Therer is a small river the Ilm, which runs through the city, there are some semi large fish in there, I believe trout as well. Someone also set up a dinner table in the middle of the river and were photographing, not exactly sure for what haha.

Tomorrow I am off the München and cannot wait. It will be an awesome 4-5 hour ICE train ride.

Servus!

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Photos

memorial
closed due to construction