We have a lovely corner room with 4 large windows and a huge bathroom. The Malta bedroom could fit in this room 3 times and the bathroom twice. Not that we spend lots of time in the hotel but it sure is a pleasant room, except the wifi signal is almost nonexistent.
We got up to a rainy cool day (40F) and walked back to the train station to the Gray Line tour office to go to Dachau. We thought a bus trip would be better than a city walking tour, but instead took the subway and city bus; we were still outside good deal - luckily it wasn't steady rain. We were also surprised by not having a native English-speaking guide but Kai, a young man from China who has been in Munich for 3 years and speaks exceptional English. Dachau is and was actually a comfortable suburb with neat homes, flowers and lawns.
We got up to a rainy cool day (40F) and walked back to the train station to the Gray Line tour office to go to Dachau. We thought a bus trip would be better than a city walking tour, but instead took the subway and city bus; we were still outside good deal - luckily it wasn't steady rain. We were also surprised by not having a native English-speaking guide but Kai, a young man from China who has been in Munich for 3 years and speaks exceptional English. Dachau is and was actually a comfortable suburb with neat homes, flowers and lawns.
Arrival at Dachau:
Main gate, “work will set you free”:
The concentration camp was established in 1933 to house political leaders the Nazis arrested to insure Hitler a 2/3 majority in the parliament to be voted in as Supreme Leader; those leaders were never released. Kai pointed out the difference between a jail and concentration camp was not torture but legality - people in jails were accused of specific things and found guilty in court but people in camps were never charged of anything and had no rights. The camp was called Dachau Academy because it was a very large training facility for the SS troops; all the highest SS officers were here sometime. They learned "the spirit of Dachau", which meant they learned to be sadistic instruments of inhuman cruelty. This was the first concentration camp and model for all others. Until WWII began, the population of prisoners was relatively small with 200 men in each of 32 barracks; by the end of the war, some buildings housed 2000!
Entire camp in dots; concentration camp in corner A & B:
Sculpture:
The first cremation building was built by the prisoners in 1940; 2 years later they built a bigger one with a gas chamber. Two months before the American Troops liberated Dachau, the camp had run out of coal so the Americans found mounds of skeleton remains all over the camp and in the woods. The records kept by the SS troops leave a gruesome record of the systematic horrors inflicted on every one who entered Dachau. The biggest surprise to us was how much Germans who weren't Jews suffered under the Nazis.
One of 4 religious memorials:
Catholic memorial:
All of this from a well trained Chinese guide who identified because of the horrors the Japanese inflicted on the Chinese in WWII; he preached that we as individuals should work to remember the genocide that has occurred in all cultures and is still occurring. This became a memorial in 1965 with the saying in German "Remember the past and Warn the future".
Unknown prisoners memorial:
We took the same public transportation back to Munich and joined Kai for a late lunch/ early dinner in a local Bavarian restaurant with LOTS of good food. We enjoyed hearing about his story, philosophy and politics. We walked home thru an 8 block pedestrian street filled with shoppers and tourists, fountains and flowers. Chris got a hot bath and went to bed, with Bill not too far behind her.
Munich City Hall:
Fountain in pedestrian mall:
That sounds like a powerful and emotionally draining morning. That's some heavy stuff.
ReplyDeleteThe city hall is beautiful though.