Day Thirteen

Germany Past

We loaded up and left Seefeld after breakfast. It was around 11 when we reached Dachau. Dachau was one of the concentration camps in which prisoners were held by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In 1945, my grandfather was present at the camp's liberation. My family has pictures that he took then of bodies stacked in railroad cars. Going there was even more important for me because of the history and because my grandfather had been there 55 years before.

The gates to the camp still stand, and still read "Arbeit macht frei." The first building you enter is set up most like a museum. There are pictures of important events, a basic history of the camp, and posters and things like that, but all of the tags are in German. There was one room off to the side that was filled with wreaths and memorials and markers that visitors had left in honor of the victims and the liberators. That room made me cry. One wreath had a ribbon that said "Ils ont brisé nos chaînes"--they have broken our chains. That sentiment in particular really touches me, even today.

Many of the original buildings were pulled down, some by the Allies after liberation. There remain some guardhouses, two barracks buildings, and the crematoria. There are also a few memorial chapels, built since the camp closed. It's a little frightening to walk through the crematoria, one of which has a gas chamber in the same building. Outside the crematoria are two large plots where ashes were buried. One is marked with a menorah, the other with a cross, and both "Grave of thousands unknown."

One barracks building is set up as it would have been at the beginning of the war, when there weren't as many prisoners. It wasn't that bad, relatively speaking. But the barracks from nearer the end of the war didn't have beds; it just had shelves stacked up three high.

There is an international memorial at the resting place of the Ashes of an Unknown Prisoner. In different languages it says "Never Again."

When we left Dachau and were on the bus on our way to lunch, some of my friends were wondering why we had visited a concentration camp. I could not begin to explain to them why it was important that we took time from our fun to remember the suffering of millions of people, of entire countries. It enrages me that there are people who actually have the nerve to deny that the Holocaust happened. That's why we went, because those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Because we should never take our blessings and liberties for granted, and because the people who died in these camps deserve to be remembered.

From lunch it was back on the bus and on to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Rothenburg dates from the 13th century, and is (fanfare please) a walled city. I don't know if it could be any cooler if it tried. During World War II part of the wall was destroyed, but it was rebuilt after the war ended, with donations from around the world. The oldest part of the town is inside the wall; that's where our hotel was. After dinner I walked on the wall with one of the other kids from school.

The walls are several feet thick, and in some of the rebuilt sections there are plaques with the names and messages from people who donated to the rebuilding. The wall doesn't go all the way around the town; there are places where you have to descend and walk a little on the street before climbing up on the wall again. At one of these points we were about to go down through the tower when my friend, who was ahead of me, yelled and jumped back. That reaction in turn startled me. It turned out that a cat had run through the tower, but the blur of movement in the dark was enough to freak us out. We were able to psych ourselves up enough to run down the stairs and outside the wall and walked through the moat for a while. Then we met up with some of the others, and we managed to get back to the hotel without getting lost.
Tomorrow: crime and punishment, Christmas in July, our last concert, visitors from afar, the nightwatchman, and testimonials