Frei.

Chatter. Silence. Ahhh... finally

WHAM! Snap, munch, munch. Snap, munch, munch. Apples. Love-hate relationship. Have I mentioned how much smacking bothers me? ....ESPECIALLY when I'm trying to sleep.

Such is a night in the hostel. I got away with murder for my first night: I only had one roommate. This go around I was staying with 5 other girls, none of which were fluent in English. All of them were visiting from Japan. Oh, my. Okay, so for a youth hostel, going to bed at 11 pm is a little out of the ordinary. However, these girls proceeded to stay up and chat as loudly as possible until who even knows when. Finally at about 2 am I awoke to find that the lights were off... and then I became enlightened on why I had awoken. The snoring. I had NO idea that such little people could make such horrid, loud, obnoxious noises! It was unbearable. Just when it was silent enough to get a little bit of shut-eye, the chorus produced by the nasal blockage had an AED effect and made me fully alert. At least I had a bed.

In the morning I awoke to similar chaos, lots of shuffling and waiting on the one bathroom that we had to share. It really was quite clean for a hostel, I must say. Check out was flawless, I even introduced myself to another sorority girl from California (Chi Omega) and the reception(ist?). Would you call it a receptionist if it was a guy? I always tend to associate that term with a female reception-person. Anyhow, he was from Ireland and of course I had to ask about Cork especially considering my recent discovery about my graduate school admittance to University College Cork!

S-Bahn

From there it was straight to the S-Bahn (no strikes today, hooray!) to Dachau. Missing the train connection in the Stuttgart station definitely left a sour taste in my mouth when it comes to the German train system. However, I do have to say that the trains are incredibly efficient and precise. I wish we had something similar in the states. I would certainly have seen more of my own country if that was the case. Not to mention the train stations are simply stocked full of sweet stands with baked goods, candy (especially haribo products) and gelato. Unlike Atlanta's famous Marta, the stations are not sketchy. Marta = get mugged, S-bahn = get where you need to go. Big difference.

I noticed on the way to Dachau someone on the train had a newspaper which featured the students in Munich putting on that thing with the John Deer tractor and cow costume. Apparently it was a big deal! There were chicken and pig costumes also involved in the whole extravaganza.

After the short train trip, I hopped on a bus bound for the concentration camp. The bus was absolutely PACKED with German students. It was incredible. The kid next to me looked like what we Americans would kindly refer to as a "hooligan". He was also singing songs in English that he was listening to on his iPod in a very thick southern accent. Hilarious. I wish I had gotten a recording of the occasion. Marvelous entertainment if I do say so myself.

Maybe I've been a bit biased against the German language, given my limited exposure, but I've always thought it was rather harsh and violent. Hearing it around here is much different. It's actually quite pretty when spoken in a normal tone and not yelled by American actors dressed up in Nazi costumes.

Dachau itself was an incredibly sobering experience. I knew it would be; I'd be an idiot not to think so. It's amazing just how many student groups were there visiting the place. I'd heard that it was a requirement for them but I didn't know that so many students could come on one day. Impressive.

The weather was perfect for the visit. It was biting cold, dreary and completely overcast. The compound itself was left in its cold, harsh condition and nothing was beautified. It was easy to imagine just how depressing living there would be- even without the guards, abuse, and sheer lack of respect for human dignity. At the entrance to the compound, there is an iron gate bearing the words "Arbeit macht frei" which loosely translates into "Work will make you free". It's difficult to put into words how it felt to walk through the famed gate. Immediately I felt a wave of cold and immense weight. It was hard to keep a dry eye, just imagining the prisoners arriving, never knowing if they would see their loved ones or return home ever again. Many didn't.

Dachau was Germany's very first concentration camp and it was the only one to last all 12 years of the Nazi regime. Eary on, the people in Dachau welcomed the idea of the camp in hopes that the economy would improve. However, they were completely unaware of what the camp entailed and had no idea of the terror the SS regime instilled in the people held within.

The museum was incredibly informative and descriptive, filled with all sorts of artifacts, replicas, and haunting photographs. It is set inside part of the camp which includes the areas where prisoners were first brought in, stripped, and humiliated. Welcome to Dachau.

Each room was enough to make the strongest viewer absolutely nauseous. In the introductory area to the exhibit, there were photos of German propaganda used by Hitler. One of the slogans included "Front line soldiers vote for Hitler". It's pretty difficult to vote when you're dead.

Meandering in and out of the exhibit, it was hard not to look at all the horrid photos on display. One in particular stuck out in my mind- it wasn't terribly graphic like many of them but it made you wonder about the prisoner's life. I wish I knew his story.

One of the many disturbing parts of the museum included a beating table, where the Nazi soldiers would whip prisoners while the beaten would be forced to count aloud the number of lashes he received. If he miscounted, the punishment restarted. There are recollections of Nazi solider participating in this horrid ritual telling one another to take it slowly so the prisoner could "enjoy" the punishment.

After watching a moving film, and it doesn't take much to make a film about Dachau moving, I headed out back by the bunker. The shooting wall used for quick executions was there as well as an area they used for pole hanging. Pole hanging was a form of punishment used when the prisoner performed a minor infraction such as allowing a coffee stain to go unnoticed. During this kind of punishment, the victim was tied to a pole by their hands contorted behind their back and left hanging for an hour or more.

I weaved my way around to the courtyard where victims were forced to stand for hours on end while they were counted. This could last any number of hours, and if someone was missing they would all be punished. The dead were even dragged out to be accounted for. The expanse of gravel was chilling, not only because of the lack of protection from the wind but the environment itself evolked a sense of death. Two of the barracks have been reconstructed for the sake of tourism. Going inside, I saw the beds that they slept on. Beds is of course a very loose term, they consisted of slabs of wood elevated off the ground. The toilets were all in one room, no privacy. It's no wonder why disease spread so quickly throughout the compound. People were crammed into tiny living areas with nowhere to run to except outside into the freezing cold.

The center aisle of the compound was lined with poplar trees, of course this time of year they look something similar to foliage in Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas" or his other movie "Sleepy Hallow". Where the other barracks used to be are now large concrete squares filled with gravel, probably more comforting than their former structures. At the end of the aisle are three monuments to commemorate those who died. Two are dedicated to the Christian faith and the third is Jewish. I don't know what the artist was trying to accomplish, but if he wanted to make the viewer feel as if they were being watched by death, he achieved it. The monument was a downhill slope, descending into the bowels of the earth and passing through an iron gate. Inside there was one small hole in the ceiling where like shone through like a symbol of hope. Very bizarre.

From there I shuffled through the field of gravel to the crematorium and gas chamber. The crematorium actually consisted of two parts; one was the original crematorium and the other built out of necessity. There were far too many bodies being produced and not enough facilities to dispose of them "properly". Around the crematorium was a small memorial garden which marked the shooting range as well as the area where ashes were disposed of. The exhibit allows the viewer to wander inside of the chambers, through the sanitation area (where clothes were sanitized with prussic acid poison gas), waiting room, derobing room, chamber itself, crematorium and a few rooms to hold the bodies of those who fell victim to the gas. Apparently this chamber was actually not used for mass murder like Auschwitz (the conditions seemed to take care of this) but the effect was still the same. Those fortunate enough to forgo disease were experimented on by means of high altitude, ice water baths, and other cruel treatments. Most of those who were subjected to these "medical" experiments died at the hands of their captors.

A slow procession out of the compound ended my visit to Dachau. Much like my entry, it was a strange feeling walking through the gates. It wasn't as drastic as making my way in, but it seemed as if a weight was lifted when I left. Thousands went through and never came out. Few walked free.
 

The gate from the outside

Some committed suicide by throwing themselves into the electric fencing

Even the creek around the complex was creepy

Original crematorium

"New" crematorium

Pistol range where some were killed

Memorial garden area

Sanitation room for the clothing

Gas chamber- just haunting

Inside the Jewish memorial

Descending into the Jewish memorial

Looking out on where the barracks would have been

Guard tower

Toilets in the barracks

Inside the barracks

The middle "aisle"

The beds

Where new arrivals showered and a common place for pole-hanging- note the schoolgroups

A sculpture in front of the museum

Entry gate again- from the inside

Execution wall- by firing squad

One of many pieces of propaganda

Part of the roll-call courtyard

Famous gate

After a crammed bus ride back to the Bahnhof, I made my way to a local cafe and had a lovely lunch. Then I spent my time wandering around Dachau for a bit. It really is a cute town despite its gruesome history. And now, after a short S-Bahn trip back to Munich, I am headed on a very long train ride back to Heidelberg. Again, the train systems are fabulous. I have an outlet for my laptop, a table AND a bathroom right down the hall. Prices are steep, but nowadays the gas money would cost an arm and a leg anyways.