We got up about 4 a.m. yesterday and took the train to Munich. We arrived there about 9 a.m. and spent the day and evening walking from one end of the city to the other looking at the sights and taking in as much as we could in the time we had. Our taking in sights was punctuated by ducking into the nearest available store periodically to heat up our bones again. It was something like -2 degrees celcius. I’m not sure exactly what that translates to in American English, but I’m pretty sure the rough translation is really, really, really cold. I’ve bought more hats, scarves and boots since I’ve been here than I’ve bought in the last ten years.
We saw so many beautiful sights that its hard to describe it all. The Christmas Markets there are world renowned. The architecture is breathtaking. The Residenz was something out of a storybook. The shops and stores in the old downtown had every Bavarian treasure that could be had and priced outrageously for the tourists who walk those streets day and night regardless of how cold it is outside. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the things I have noticed about the Germans, they don’t let a little cold weather keep them from having festivals or keep them inside.
What can I say about Bavaria. The people are friendly. There’s so little crime that its easy to forget that you are still in a huge city and there is surely someone there that would rob you. The people here use every excuse imaginable to have a festival. The towns and countryside are unbelievably clean and organized. Even the wood in the fields is stacked in perfect order. People take responsibility for their own actions and their own property. If a deer runs in front of your car, its the property owners responsibility to take care of the deer carcus so that it doesn’t cause any further problems or stay rotting in the road. And the people seem to love a good time.
As we walked across the old very cold downtown to our hotel room last night, at midnight through streets still crowded with revelers, tourists, locals and one group of German men singing songs that echoed through the market place, I commented to my Beloved Curmudgeon that when one sees the Germans in this light, its hard to believe they started two world wars. He laughed and said they must have gotten drunk one night and when someone said, ‘lets start a fight’, they went for it. We both laughed and talked about what a happy, fun loving people they seem to be.
When we got up this morning and it was so bitterly cold, we decided to rent a car to drive back to my son’s apartment rather than take the train. We also decided to pass up another trip walking through Munich to see whatever. It was just too cold for us Southern Americans.
Since we weren’t going to sightsee in Munich anymore, my Beloved Curmudgeon suggested we stop at Dachau on the way home. It was right on the way and he thought that would be something interesting to see. I admit that the cold and the fact that I was absolutely sure it would be just too depressing, made me less than enthusiastic at the prospect. But I thought to myself, when will you ever get the opportunity to see something like that again and decided to go in spite of the frigid temperatures.
And so we went to Dachau Concentration Camp.
Reading about the concentration camps of the Third Reich and touring one of them are two completely different experiences. Reading about the camps, watching a documentary is an intellectual exercise. Walking through the camp, seeing the pictures of the victims, reading their stories, seeing the bullet holes in the wall in front of which executions took place, looking at the ovens in which bodies were disposed of, seeing the sites where ashes were disposed of is an emotional experience …. visiting the place gives an entirely different perspective.
I was very cold when I walked into the barracks. I had on a warm winter coat, boots, scarves and a hat and I was uncomfortably cold. Even in the barracks where the wind was stopped by the walls of the building I was cold. I imagined the men and women who endured those barracks for years without the benefit of warm winter clothing. As I walked across the court yard I found myself hurrying over it as the wind cut through the clearing between the buildings unmercifully and chilled me to the bone. I had read some of the history of Dachau and knew that the grounds over which I walked was where the prisoners were forced to stand for hours every day for an accounting of prisoners. In summer and winter they stood there. Often for hours at a time. In rags. If they collapsed, they were left. Sometimes even the dead were drug out there and left with the others as they stood at the mercy of their captors.
My discomfort suddenly seemed completely insignificant and self indulgent. How could I complain when so many had suffered so terribly there. I stopped hurrying. For some odd reason it seemed disrespectful for me to let my feeling cold move me faster across the grounds. I feel silly even typing that out. Its such a ridiculous idea that has no real meaning at all. Still, it seemed that too many had died there for me to give any concern for my own comfort while walking across that gathering place. I walked slower and let myself feel my discomfort. It was an embarrassingly small gesture, but it was instinctual and all there was that I could do.
At the farthest end of the camp is the extermination area. The incongruence between the pleasantly manicured natural beauty of the area and the brutal murders that took place there is disconcerting. The original building holding a gas chamber and ovens was only in use a short time before it proved to be too small for what it was used for. A larger building for the same use stands just a few feet away having been built just a few months after the first building had been built. Walking through those buildings is an experience I will not soon forget. One should not forget it. The Russians and Germans who had not complied with the Nazi ideology were executed by riffle or pistol against walls a short walk further down the lovely wooded path that leads from the main camp to the execution area.
The names, faces and stories of those who inhabited that forbidding encampment are haunting. Among many other things, the Nazis were precise record keepers. The victims linger there in the records. Photographs and statistics tell their stories. Some stand out in my mind. Photos from before their imprisonment beside photos of them while imprisoned reveal changes that rendered them virtually unrecognizable. Successful businessmen, school teachers, homemakers, students, people from all walks of life were brought together to endure the same fate in Dachau as well as the many other camps into which people were herded for extermination.
Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, the infirmed, the socially feeble minded, criminals, Russians, political rivals, those who had been German elite prior to the reign of the Third Reich and local people who tried to do something about the horrors they couldn’t help but have known was right down the road. It helped me understand why the local people chose blindness and deafness over confronting the evils unfolding just down the road. They were also killed if they attempted to do anything about it. I found myself wondering what I would do in similar circumstances. When neighbors and friends disappear for speaking out would I have the courage to speak out? I hope I would, but how can I know. No one who spoke out survived to tell us. Those who didn’t had to live with what they chose not to see.
We know and see things today that we choose to not see. We feel badly about it, but go on with our lives just feeling bad about the evils in the world. That’s all. We don’t really stop and do anything more than feel bad about it. At what point do we decide that we have to speak up even if it means at the risk of everything.
The lighthearted festivities of the night before in Munich disappeared in the stark reminders of how a perfect storm of circumstances drew an entire nation into evil. The Germans say they have learned their lesson. It would do us all well to remember that we all could become ensnared in similar traps. The lessons there are not just for the Germans, but for us all.
We left Dachau and drove home in complete silence.
(This post was written while we were in Germany but didn’t have a chance to post it until now.)
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