October 13th: Dachau

Hello!

Firstly, I want to apologize for the late post. I was hoping to write and post this yesterday or Saturday, but I was much busier than anticipated. And the pictures took FOREVER to upload for whatever reason. And while they are uploading, I cannot write.

In any case, here we go!

This past week felt to go by pretty quickly. I think I am getting more and more used to the schedule that it just flies by now. It kind of reminded me of that moment in college when you're just going to class and doing your work and suddenly you look at the calender and midterms are in two weeks and you don't know where the semester went.

I went for a walk once or twice this week to get out and admire the changing leaves. However, it has been rather cold and wet this week, so I did not get to take many long walks. Here is a couple of pictures from my walks.

Nothing too exciting in them, but I just enjoy the fall colors.

Also this week, I attended a little German language course. I don't know if I have explained this before in a post, but I will do it again. There is a family center in Neu-Ulm that offers a very cheap class that is primarily for people that have come to Germany rather unexpectedly. Due to scheduling conflicts with the bigger language schools in Ulm (the next class for beginners doesn't start until November 9th), my host mother signed me up for this class just to get my feet wet and to give me something to do. The class only meets Wednesdays and Fridays from 9-10:30. Which isn't much, but it is something. The teacher was actually recovering from surgery this week, so my host mom was asked to teach the class. The class is probably close to 10 people. And one interesting thing about the class is the range of native languages. English is the closest thing to a common language we have. The native languages are: Urdu [Pakistan], Swahili [Tunisia], English [me], Persian (Farsi?) [Afghanistan], French [Mali], and Arabic [Syria]. It is quite fun trying to communicate with them and we have some good laughs and such. Many of them struggle with some of the sounds in German because their languages don't have those sounds. I am lucky that English and German share so many sounds and even words.

On Facebook, I am part of a group called "English Stammtisch in Ulm." A Stammtisch is essentially a meeting that occurs on a regular basis. This group is comprised of people that live in or near Ulm and enjoy getting together once a month to speak English and to share cultures and have a good time. I joined after their Stammtisch in September, so I had to wait until this one is October. The meeting took place at a Brauhaus (basically a restaurant, not sure what makes it a Brauhaus) very close to my house--only about 6 minutes on a bike. It was a very casual event. Basically, the group just reserved three of four long tables and people came, ate, drank, and left at their own leisure. I ended up somehow sitting in the British Isles. I sat by people from England, Scotland, Ireland, Finland, Germany, and Spain. I had some Schnitzel with french fries and a couple of glasses of some very sweet wine. Well, it was white wine mixed with.....something, I forget. It was very fun meeting some new people and hearing their stories and sharing my story. There was a WIDE variety of topics discussed and it was interesting hearing different perspectives from different cultures. I was there for about 3 hours before I decided to leave (I was pretty tired for some reason) and said "see ya" to the British Isles and told them I would see them next month.

As the post titles implies, this Saturday, I took a trip to Dachau. As I was on the train back home, I was debating how exactly I should discuss this on my post. The ultimate conclusion was that I was going to give a warning and the just be very blunt. I am going to describe some horrible things. I won't go into deep, deep details, but I will talk about them and show you pictures of these things. Some of them are original and some of them are just replicas that were rebuilt after the Allies destroyed them in the war. So, this was my warning, I suppose. And now, I explain the journey.

My morning started in an interesting way. I woke up and took a shower and got ready knowing that I had plenty of time before my train. However, I wanted to double-check departure time and platforms so I could have a better idea of where to go and when to go there. I then found out that I had written down the wrong time and I had a little less than 20 minutes instead of the 40 I thought I had. So I quickly got my things, apologized to my host family for not staying for breakfast, and ran out the door. I biked very quickly in the cold morning to the train station. I had to wait for someone to get done using the ticket machine and when he was done, I have never used that machine faster. I quickly got my ticket and ran downstairs. The train showed up a minute later and I got on with a sigh of relief. I sat near a bunch of middle-aged women who were on their way to Munich. They brought about 3 bottles of wine and were just having a grand ol' time on the train. We said goodbye and parted ways at the Munich train station. I got myself a pretzel and a Coke and waited for the next train to Dachau.

I got on a train that I was pretty sure the right train to Dachau. The map inside the train showed it went to Dachau, but that another train went to Dachau Stadt (city). I was sitting on the train waiting for the Dachau stop when I heard a couple across the isle from me speaking another language that wasn't German or English (it was too quiet for me to really tell what it was). I heard them practicing the correct pronunciation of "Dachau." So I leaned over and asked them if they spoke English and they said yes. And I asked them if they were going to the Dachau memorial, and they said yes. So we joined forces to get to the memorial together. They were here from Brazil for a few weeks. I did not catch their names, but they were very nice. And their English wasn't bad. We got off the train at the right stop and we were then faced with about 5 different buses. None of them very clearly said if they were going to the memorial. We got on one that looked good and after we left, we soon found out it wasn't going there. A man on the bus (who spoke English) overheard us and talked to the driver. The driver told us the best option was to get off at a particular stop and it was an easy, 10 minute walk from there. So we did just that. We got shoddy directions from the driver, but went in the right direction and looked for tourists. We made our way to the memorial and said goodbye and went our separate ways. 

The scenery was actually quite lovely, which is odd to say, but it is basically in a big wooded area surrounded by trees with changing leaves. This is the view as I walked up to the visitor center right outside of the memorial. This is where I went inside and purchased an audio tour (in English) that was quite nice to have...and interesting looking.

The pamphlet had a map with various numbers at each location. You could type in the number you wanted and put it up to your ear like a phone. The English voices were British, so that was lovely.

As I approached the camp, I noticed how dreary the weather was, which is oddly appropriate. It was very cold and windy. The sun was nowhere to be found. I saw small remnants of the train tracks that brought people to the camp. This tracks stopped right in front of the Jourhaus. The Jourhaus was basically the front gate and the main office of the SS Officers at the camp. They also did some interrogations in the Jourhaus. 

The Jourhaus.

"Work Brings Freedom." The message on the gate as the prisoners entered the camp.

You are immediately greeted by a large, gravel, open area. This was known as the Roll-Call Square. Prisoners would be called to this area and would be forced to stand completely still for hours at a time. If someone fell, you would be punished and beaten if you tried to help them up or to see if they were okay. It wasn't uncommon for people to die during roll-call. In fact, some prisoners were forced to bring dead prisoners to roll-call so they could be accounted for. This area just seemed so big and devoid of...anything. It was quite eerie. 

The building you see on the right is known as the Maintenance Building. This was the building where prisoners were brought when they arrived. This is where they were processed, had their personal belongings taken, stripped of their clothes, humiliated, beaten, and sent into the camp. The building is original and now serves as a museum that follows the history and path of the prisoners. The air in the building was odd and a little stifling. Just knowing what happened within those walls was bizarre. 

The first thing you see when you enter.

Some propaganda displayed on a board. Basically, it is insulting the Soviets and telling people that their only hope is in Hitler.

This message is actually original. It is nothing too impactful, it just means "Smoking forbidden."

A collection of original prisoner cards. These cards had personal information on the prisoners and was stored very meticulously in an archive.

Not the best panoramic shot, but this is one of the exhibit rooms in the building.

Some music that was actually written by two prisoners while in Dachau.

A full panoramic shot of the maintenance building from the roll-call square.

From there, I approached one of the exterior walls of the camp. The watchtower is original, but the walls and fences were destroyed. So what is you see is just a recreation. There was a ditch before the first fence and about 20 feet of grass between that fence and the tall exterior wall (with barbed wire on top, of course). This area was essentially a killzone. Many prisoners ran into this zone because they knew it would end their suffering. 

Original tower with replicate fences and walls.

I walked across the roll-call square to a barracks building. This building is a recreation because all of the barracks were destroyed by Allied troops. Originally there were only a few barracks. But in 1937 and '38, the prisoners were forced to build more and expanded the camp quite a bit in order to fit more people. The final result was, I believe, 34 barracks. Many of them were housing buildings, but some of them served other purposes such as offices or the infirmary (where terrible human experiments took place). The "inferior" prisoners were put in the barracks furthest from the maintenance building. The barracks were designed to board 200 prisoners. Towards the end of the war, the barracks boarded 2000 prisoners, meaning WILD overcrowding. The picture of the sleeping quarters doesn't do it justice, but the room itself couldn't do it justice because of the overcrowding.

After that, I walked down "camp row." This was a road that went from the roll-call square to all of the barracks (it split the two rows of barracks). The trees you see were the trees that were at the camp and weren't just added later. The stone outlines you will see show were the former barracks stood. They only rebuilt the first two barracks to show people what they would look like.

Site of the infirmary where many people lost their lives in "medical experiments."

At the end of the camp road stand three different religious memorials. The one in the middle is the Catholic memorial. A tall cylinder with a large wooden cross being suspended from the ceiling by cables. Under it, an altar with some flowers and a small crucifix. 

To the right of this memorial was the Jewish memorial. This one sent a very powerful message. It was built into the ground and was made of black stone from lava. The railings on the ramp going down into the memorial was also black and resembled barbed wire. On top of the memorial was a menorah made of stone from Israel. The memorial is dark on the inside and had a hole in the very top for a pillar of light to enter and light the room off the back wall.

On the far left was the memorial for Protestant prisoners. This memorial was also partially underground. You entered through a tiered staircase leading to a tunnel. All of the shapes and lines in the monument are irregular and asymmetrical in order to create a juxtaposition with the rigid, cruel structure of the camp. Inside was a breathtaking room that is used to hold services every Sunday. It had an altar with a single white rose and a tray of candles. I, of course, gave a donation and lit a candle. The room was just so powerful, it is hard to explain.

Tunnel leading to the altar.

Right by this memorial was the site I dreaded the most: The Crematorium. This part will probably be the most difficult for people to read, so I am warning you now. It is all original, so what you see is truly where it all happened. 

The Crematorium is an area that is separate (maybe 100 yards) from the main camp. There is a small bridge over a ditch that leads to it. It is tucked away in the woods and was intentionally designed to be isolated. There was a small building that you could not enter, but could see inside that served as the original crematorium. Bodies of dead prisoners were brought here to be cremated. This building had one oven. 

However, when the camp expanded and the population increased drastically, they built another, larger building called "Barrack X." This building is also original. It served as a building for mass murder and cremation of prisoners. Sometimes prisoners were hanged in gallows right in front of the building. The first room was a large room where prisoners were instructed that they were going to be taking a shower. Large groups of prisoners at a time were taken into a fake shower room. The room even had fake shower heads to give the illusions that it was truly a shower. The doors were sealed and the room soon filled with poisonous gases, killing everyone inside.

"Barrack X"

Standing inside of the gas chamber. An incredibly surreal experience. 

Their bodies were then dragged into the next room where they were thrown into a pile. The room was washed clean and new prisoners were brought in. The dead bodies would then be loaded into the ovens in the next room. If I understand correctly, some people were even hanged in the oven room from the banisters overlooking the burning ovens.

Holding room for dead bodies.

There were four ovens in this room.

Outside of the building was a path into the woods. Along there path were a couple of mass graves of ashes. Memorials have been built over these graves.

Also in the woods was a wall where many prisoners were killed by firing squad. Next to the wall was a ditch for the blood. There was one specific instance of dozens of Soviet POW's being execute at this wall.

After these sights, I took a moment to myself in the roll-call square to reflect. As I have stated, it was so surreal being there. Standing where so many suffered and died. Seeing and hearing how it all happened. It was just unreal.

As I left, I ran into an American named Jeff. He and I were both heading to Munich, so we traveled together from the camp. He is a lawyer from D.C. who is working in London for a couple of weeks. He decided to, on a whim (he seemed very wealthy in this way), fly down to Germany for the weekend to see a concentration camp. He is Jewish and felt the strong need to visit this site. We talked for a bit on the train to Munich about this-and-that. At the train station, he left into the city and I grabbed a snack and waited for my train back to Ulm.

This upcoming weekend Miss Becky Payne herself is planning on visiting Germany! So we will be seeing some sights (like Neuschwanstein) and doing a bit of exploring and such. I am pretty excited. I am sure I will give you plenty of information on our fun. 

That ends this post. It was a long one, but I felt like it needed to be long. I am sorry if it got a little graphic, I tried to avoid it too much. But it's important to see this, I think. I am glad I went.

Instead of an inspiration quote, I will only leave you with what was inscribed on one of the mass grave memorials:

Never Forget.