It has been threatening rain off and on for a few days. We have been very lucky with perfect weather almost everywhere, but today our luck runs out. It is pouring and we must get to the train station for our tour. We leapfrog from different storefront awnings to try and stay dry and find some umbrellas to buy. So, about $75 later, we are walking like locals to the Bahnhof /train station.
We arrive by train, much the same way the prisoners of the concentration camp did.
We have a fairly large group, which somewhat takes away from your ability to "feel" the place. But our guide is vey knowledgeable and it is worth it to learn so much of the history and the role the camps played in the war.
This is the famous gate to the camp with the phrase in iron "arbeit machts frei" (work makes you free).
It is overcast and the ground is muddy in places. The sound of the gravel beneath my feet is disturbing. For me, the place is permeated with such bad things that I feel oppressed, but also aggitated.
This statue, like it did 30 years ago, captures the feel of Dachau for me.
I am really unable to take pictures of some things. Not because I am not allowed. I just feel it is almost disrespectful to memorialize the terribleness and it would be poisonious to "capture" memories of the most terrible of things and places. But, of course, preserving the memory of this place is crucial...for me and for all mankind. Indeed our guide tells us that a group of prisoners banded together shortly before the liberation of the camp with a plan to fight the guards or anyone who tried to destroy the place precisely because they knew the memory of the atrocities must be preserved.
This is a photo across the main square of the camp, with the barracks where the prisoners lived in the background.
This is a photo of the first crematorium at the camp, where they burned bodies of dead prisoners. It was next to a gas chamber where, as in movies, the prisoners were led to believe (complete with signs) that they were just getting a shower.
I could not photograph the gas chamber nor the ovens. It is even difficult to write about it still. But we all know the story must be told. Our guide confirms that every school child and every member of the military in Germany must visit a concentration camp. We must all remember to try and not let these things happen again. It is a very narrow line we walk every day, the difference between then and now. Our guide tells us that Hitler came into his real power after the parliament building in Berlin was burned, allegedly by foreign enemies. Accordingly, he was able to get passed "emergency" laws for the "safety" of the country and its people to "temporarily" suspend civil rights and arrest those suspected of being dangerous to the country. I wondered if anyone else in the tour got the chills in remembering our own Patriot Act after 9-11.
-Mom, Coach and Tour Guide
Location:Munich, Germany
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