Germany Day 16

Sept. 25, 2011. My last day in Germany had a decidedly different tone than the rest of the trip. This day was for education, for reflection, and for paying respects to Holocaust victims. Today we visited Dachau concentration camp.

We arrived by train at the city of Dachau, and planned to take the bus to the memorial site. However, it was full and could only hold part of our group. If the rest of our group had waited for the next bus, we would have been late for our scheduled tour. So Jens and some volunteers elected to walk, which would take approximately 1/2 hour. We set out briskly, watching for signs, asking directions, and checking our watches often. We had to keep moving fast in order to arrive on time, and we made the 2-mile walk in just under 30 minutes. The rest of our group was waiting with a young lady named Antje who would be our guide, and she began to tell us the story of Dachau Concentration Camp.

The first thing we learned was that those of us who had walked were treading in the very footsteps of the prisoners. Like us, they arrived in the city of Dachau by train and had to walk to the camp. Today, it is known as the "Path of Remembrance" and very few visitors arrive on foot as the prisoners did, and as we did. Anjte said this gave us a small insight into what the prisoners felt as they marched to this place. I felt tears threaten for the first time, and it would not be the last time this day. The jokes made last night about our 'death march' suddenly seemed in poor taste; we would not use that term again to describe the minor discomfort we felt from walking too long.

The camp's history is well-known and documented, so if you are interested in facts and figures do a Google search and it is all there. I will tell you what I saw and felt and experienced, but nothing I can say will begin to properly describe the emotions I felt or do justice to those who lived and died here. No one who enters those gates will leave without being changed in some way.

Dachau was chosen as the site for a concentration camp because there was an old abandoned WWI munitions factory outside the city which provided ample room and some buildings ready for occupation. Dachau was just a normal German city in 1933, but the name would later become synonymous for the concentration camp, a fact the citizens have had to deal with for decades. It took many years for the city to acknowledge the camp with signposts and story boards along the Path of Remembrance; everyone wanted to forget it had existed. It has been a long, difficult journey for Germans in general, and an even more difficult one for those who lived in the shadow of a concentration camp. Their pain is our pain as well, for how many of us have looked the other way when a wrong was being done? Would we - could we - have done anything differently? There will always be more questions than answers about this horrible time.

To walk through the iron gate with the ironic sign that states, "Arbeit Macht Frie" or "Work Will Make You Free" is a sobering experience. All prisoners passed through this gate, and you could somehow feel their sorrow and fear. The vast grounds spread out before me, and for the second time I choked back tears as I saw the frightening, desolate area where so many spent their last days. The long barracks buildings were on the left; the maintenance building to the right was where cooking, laundry and other work were done. Between stretched an immense gravel field called the roll call area. It was here, morning and evening, that prisoners had to stand for roll call so that the prison guards could take count of the healthy, the sick, and the dead. Prisoners were often forced to stand for hours in the cold winds and pouring rain if a SS officer decided it was necessary. My throat constricted and my chest tightened as I looked at that field, imagining those thousands of human beings standing at attention and having to ignore those that fell or face certain death themselves. That field haunted me; I can still see it in my mind and when I think of the camp this is the image I see.

The concentration camp had a prison, as if being there weren't bad enough to begin with. Prisoners were tortured, and punishments and executions conducted in the courtyard next to the prison. Cells line both sides of this enormously long building, and though they are all alike - a small concrete room with a thick wooden door - I couldn't help peering through the bars into cell after cell. It was a terrible place where I could almost feel the prisoners' fear, and it was with relief that I stepped out of the building and into the sunshine.

We passed guard towers and a section of perimeter fencing to visit the most horrifying place of all - the crematorium. The brick building with a large, square chimney had rooms for disrobing, a gas chamber, incinerator room and execution site, and 2 rooms where the bodies were stored prior to cremation. This is place of unimaginable terror, and I found it hard to wrap my mind around what had occurred there. It felt surreal, like something from a bad horror movie. This, however was all too real.

I fear today's journal is turning out to be much longer than I originally thought it would. Dachau was an emotional experience, and it seems disrespectful to jot a few lines and be done with it. There will likely be a lot more added at a later date, but I wanted to get these first impressions down while they are still fresh in my memory.

We watched a documentary after our walking tour, and you could have heard a pin drop in the theater. Graphic movies and images captured by the American army upon entering Dachau portrayed some of the atrocities that had occurred, and I don't believe there was a dry eye in the house. History became real before our very eyes today, and it was a sobering experience.

The only picture I will post is of the memorial sculpture; it somehow feels disrespectful to post anything else here. The bronze sculpture was dedicated in 1968, and looks like strands of barbed wire on which skeletons are hanging with their heads dangling. On either side of the sculpture are concrete fence posts which resemble the ones actually used to support the barbed wire fence around the camp. The hands of the skeletons resemble the barbs on a barbed wire fence. It is a fitting monument for all to remember what occurred on this spot. Dachau International Memorial Sculpture

We ate dinner together on this last night as a group. Two weeks ago we barely knew each other; today we have become friends. We discussed our reunion meeting, where we will exchange photos and enjoy each others' company once again. Jens and Judy brought together a diverse group of individuals and shared some of their favorite places with us. Now they are our favorite places too, and maybe someday we can come back and share these wonderful places with our friends and family. Thank you, Jens and Judy, for the memories!