So Dachau... I will not lie, it was a hard day. We spent all morning and part of the afternoon at the concentration camp. It was easy to get to, a train, and then a local bus goes right by it. What amazes me is Dachau is a town, people live there. That would freak me out, 'yes I live in a town where there was a concentration camp, it's a beautiful location, lots of things to do'. Er. Anyway.
So we got there about 9ish, haha of course we missed our stop. I guess it was a request stop, so yeah it didn't stop. I don't know how to request in German, but the next time the bus stopped we got out and walked. It wasn't far. So actually I'm writing this without my journal on hand... too many papers in this room and I can't see it. Oh well, I'll do my best. We got audio guides for the grounds, and then we went up a walkway that leads to the gate. Now Dachau is home to the famous gate with the words,"Arbeit macht frei", aka Work Shall Set You Free. Omg, this is horrible but I'm listening to my MP3 Player as I type this and Schindler's List just came on. Great, just what I need. Good music though. Anyway, so all visitors enter the way the men back then did... so in this place where no one is, we enter through the gate. I swear, there was no one around, no noise at all except a crow making too much noise. I felt like I was in a movie or something. It was just creepy. We entered though, and at once my thoughts went to Hogans, you enter into a huge compound. But in being there for 2 seconds you know that this isn't some TV show. My second thought was how did all this happen in such an innocent looking place. You walk in, it's a large compound, but to your right is the museum, to your left in the distance is an example of the barracks, in front of you is a memorial, and beyond that is a creepy looking memorial.
So we walked around, and I had goosebumps on my arms the whole time. You just know that some evil, brutal stuff went on here, you can almost feel it. It's weird, but you can also see hundreds of men lined up every day for roll call, and the guards walking around terrorizing everyone... I've never experienced anything like this before, and maybe I just have a vivid imagination, but it was so real. I'm not even going to go anywhere near being able to understand it all, you can't, from everything I've ever read, you know its beyond understanding, but the place will never lose the feel of suffering that surrounds it.
It's important to know that Dachau was more of a political camp, it had all sorts of people, Jewish, priests, foreigners, anyone, but the majority of the political people came here. It was not the worst camp, but it became a model for others. The Kommandants of Dachau were usually sent to other camps to pass on the Dachau spirit.
So we walk around, first to the right and alongside the museum, past one memorial, and then to the creepy one. It looks like pictures I've seen of the pile of dead bodies... it's appropriate but creepy. As I'm looking around, I really felt like I was intruding. Maybe it was because we were basically the only two people walking around, but I just felt like I didn't belong. I'm not sure how Monica felt, but it was definitely an interesting experience. So we kept walking, and went into the barracks. Now Dachau has three stages... the early years when things were bad, but they were going to get worst. You can see the three stages in the bunks. At first everyone had their own bunk, a hook for clothes, there was a few benches for eating, that was like Stalag 13. The next room had it so two people shared a bunk, they were a little larger, but you didn't have a bed to yourself anymore. That room was all bunks, and in the next room was an eating space. That was after Dachau had been redone, and more barracks built. But the next room was one long bunk, and basically all the men that could possibility fit where squeezed onto the bunk. That was the final years. The conditions just got worse of course. You stand in any of these rooms and just think how did they do it? How did they survive, and a lot didn't. I mean most people don't like sharing a room with more than one person, and here they shared bed space. They had no privacy at all. You stand there and wonder how it came to this... and then you realize you haven't seen anything yet.
Back outside, we walked down the lane that had the barracks, the foundations are still there with a stone that has the number. Even numbers were on the left, odd on the right. As you walk down this lane, you see some of the guard towers that remain, the big wire, the ditch before the wire, and it was here that I realized how ridiculous Hogans Heroes is sometimes. This was an inescapable camp, it was suicidal to try. You wish though it was like Hogans, that they didn't suffer as much as you know they did, even now years later, when you don't even know half of it, you wish for some relief for the ghosts of those who died here.
We walked all the way down to the religious memorials, but the whole time I felt like someone was watching me, and I looked up to the guard towers, and I could just see men with their big guns watching the men of the camp, unmercifully killing anyone who got too close to the wire. Monica and I barely spoke while we were here, so I had a lot of time to think, and I wonder if these people ever thought they would experience something like this, and why them. I'm sure they did, and here I'm thinking, okay what if I lived in a time like this, would I have made it? I still can't answer that. People I think like to believe they would be strong enough, but I think it's more than strength that you need, I'm not sure what it is, but the people who did survive this are remarkable.
The religious memorials were okay, they are meant to ease suffering, but they looked out of place here. Just by the sight of them you should feel at ease a little bit, but I felt nothing. One of the memorials is a church... I wonder how many people go to church here. No thank you. The Jewish memorial was probably the weirdest but most interesting. It was very dark, black, and empty. I can think of a few ways that is appropriate.
Now we walked around the memorials, but then walked outside the gate to the crematorium... oh boy. There are two furnaces here, the old one and Barracks X. Barracks X was built because the furnace wasn't working fast enough. Now I've been taking pictures of the outside, I'm not sure why, I will never forget this place, but maybe it was just something to do with my hands. But I went into Barracks X and my camera went in my pocket. When you walk in to your left is the gas chambers that they say were not used. They look like showers. They only think that they were never used because they never found a mass grave... comforting? I think not. I walked into the middle room that holds the furnaces. Now as I've said I have an vivid imagination but I felt and saw nothing walking through Barracks X except goosebumps on my arms. I wondered why, but I think it's because what happened in here is unimaginable, that someone was okay with this, and did this like it was nothing should baffle a human being. I kept walking and went into the last room without really knowing what it was... it was the Death Chamber. AkA, this is where they put the bodies before they were cremated, and where they put the bodies when they ran out of coal to burn the bodies. I jumped out of that room so quickly. No one belongs in that room, the horror that room alone held is unbelievable. That is also the room that when the camp was liberated, the townspeople of Dachau were brought in and shown this room and asked, "Did you know about this?" The room was piled high with bodies, I saw a picture taken from that time.
Now I'm thinking okay, some people believe that the Nazi party was made up of men who got in over their heads, and maybe that's true but I'm not so sure about Hitler and Himmler. Himmler controlled the concentration camps, and some stuff stuff went on here. How do humans think of this? Are you human if you can do this to someone else?
I didn't stay in Barracks X long, I walked around the building and stopped at the graves that the different religions put in after the liberated for all those who died without a name, or anyone to mourn them.
We went into the museum next, saw a video about Dachau and just walked around reading all the different personal stories about who lived and who died. It was an interesting museum, and you got some information about who as at Dachau, why, and the different changes it went through. We were there until like 2pm. It was a hard day. I'm glad I did it though, it is something that I wanted to see, because it's so apart of the German history no matter how much they try and bury it. The thought that it could go on without anyone really knowing, or knowing and not being able to do anything about it, just is unbelievable.
Well I'm going to end this post here, the rest of the day we just got food, and called it an early night before going off to Salzburg the following morning. I enjoyed Munich a lot, it was very nice, and very different from Berlin.
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