The autobahn's are always interesting to drive on. For the most they are two lanes wide and people rarely indicate their change of lane. There are thousands of trucks and six times as many cars. Add unlimited speed into the mix and there is real potential for carnage. Driving to Munich yesterday I found that there was a lot of braking and lane changing and very little of just driving in one lane. The scariest moment was feeling our car hit by turbulence. I hovered around 130-135 kph and whilst some cars fly past, on this occasion a Porsche doing well in excess of 250+ (at our best guess) flashed past us pushing our car toward the other lane with its turbulence. Under the conditions we experienced we could not gather in our heads how anyone could do such a speed and a blowout would mean disaster not only for the Porsche but anyone unlucky enough to be near it.
So away from the autobahn we caught a train to Marion Plaza to take a tour to Dachau. The good weather only lasted a couple of days as we only hit 11 degrees today with rain and will be 10 tomorrow. There is a large conference happening in Munich so there was just us and a young American woman for the tour. After another train ride then a bus ride we arrived at Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. This was the first concentration camp to be created and served as a model camp for the thousands that would follow. There was an eerie sense to stand in the main yard where tens of thousands of prisoners stood everyday for roll call and for their daily fate to be determined.
Walking through the gates bearing the words phrase "Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes free) would be the last time hundreds of thousands of people would see the outside world again. Our first stop was the maintenance building where prisoners were processed and striped of their individuality. Some of their belongings are on display.
We then saw a short film of life in Dachau as a prisoner and its liberation.
Next was the "bunker" which was a prison where prisoners were tortured and murdered. Georg Elser, the man who attempted to assassinate Hitler served time here. We then visited the barracks where a reproduction accommodation building stands on the original foundations as the original barracks were not built to last and began to collapse as Himmler thought the camps would not be needed by the 50's. The foundations of all the barracks can be clearly seen and include the infirmary where medical experiments were conducted.
We then saw the old crematorium where the two ovens used to burn the prisoners body still stand intact. It was soon realized that these ovens could not keep pace with the death rate so a building incorporating a new crematorium with four ovens, five gas chambers -four of which were designed specifically for fumigation and a fifth for homicidal purposes. It also included a room where the dead were piled prior to being incinerated.
It was not a happy tour but a moving one where it was difficult to imagine that I was standing where the photos in front of me depicted horrors. Finn and Tilly handled the experience really well and have a greater understanding of this aspect of the war. We're really proud of their questions and the respect they showed.
Tomorrow we will do something a little happier and go to Neushwanstein castle.
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