{"id":3806,"date":"2012-08-08T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1_1344384000"},"modified":"2018-08-11T18:48:27","modified_gmt":"2018-08-11T18:48:27","slug":"dachau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cncadventures.com\/?p=3806","title":{"rendered":"Dachau"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dachau, Germany Wednesday, August 8, 2012 <\/strong><\/p>\n

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Breakfast Spread<\/p><\/div>\n

After another great breakfast, we head to Marienplatz to catch an S bahn to Dachau. Munich, like most German cities and towns has a great transportation system. Bahn means train and they have a U Bahn which serves the local munich area and an S bahn which reaches far into the suburbs. We find our way to the right track and have an 8 minute wait for the S2 train. It is amazing how many trains pull through these stations. A train stops here every 2-3 minutes while we wait.<\/p>\n

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Front Gate to Dachau<\/p><\/div>\n

Getting on, the train makes several stops on the 20 minute ride. We transfer to a bus at the Dachau station and arrive at the Concentration Camp. This camp started in 1933 soon after Hitler came into power and was used until the end of the war. It was not a death camp per se because that was not its purpose. It started out for political prisoners and then was used for various other groups for slave labor or as a transfer station to the other camps. They documented almost 40,000 deaths here but we are sure there were many more undocumented. This does not include all those that they sent on to death camps in Poland and other places. What I found interesting is how soon after Hitler came into power that the camp was put in use and that the SS used torture and punishment right off the bat. This camp became a model for the later camps and many of the more notorious camp commandants and officers were trained here in Dachau.<\/p>\n

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Work Makes You Free<\/p><\/div>\n

The inmates after walking here from the station had to pass through the front gate with the words Arbeit Macht Frei,( work makes you free). Wake up at 0400, An 11 hour workday, plus standing at attention for roll call at 0515 and 1900, then lights out at 2100 is the life that awaited. The museum displays the history of Hitlers rise to power and the opening of the camp. It goes in depth on the prisoners from different countries and religions, the torture and abuse, the use of prisoners for medical experiments, and the murder of prisoners ( most made to look like suicide or reported that way). You also get to tour the cell blocks, barracks, and the crematorium. The nazis and the SS were not just about killing Jews. Anybody who opposed them or who they thought were beneath them were treated very harshly. The Jews, Italians, Russians, and Gypsies were at the bottom of the barrel for them but many others did not fare well including Catholics and Protestants. <\/p>\n

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Sobering<\/p><\/div>\n

There was also a 20 minute movie and when they showed some of the torture and conditions as well as dead bodies, the theatre was eerily silent. I will not go into some of the gory details but will say that it was very strange knowing you were walking on ground where so many suffered and died. Some sketches made from actual inmates during their stay were particularly moving to me. It meant punishment, torture, and maybe even death to be found with such items and yet many prisoners risked writing letters, sketching, or even somehow photographing the conditions in the camp. <\/p>\n

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Oven Used to Burn Bodies<\/p><\/div>\n

The last stop was the crematorium. There were two an old and new because when they cranked things up during the war the old one could not keep up with the demand of burning the bodies. There is also a gas chamber in the new one although they never did mass murder in it but apparently used it for some prisoners. There was a short walk in the areas surrounding the crematoriums with memorials to those who were killed and the ashes in mass pits where they were deposited. We walked the road that the prisoners came here on, back to the train station.<\/p>\n

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Salesman Samples-Assam<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in Munich, we visited St Michaels Church where King Ludwig II is buried and the Assam Church near our Pension. The Assam brothers built this church next to their home( it was connected) as a model for selling their work as architects and builders. Church officials could come here and see all the things that were possible for them to have, even things on the cheap such as wood that looked like marble, colored glass instead of amber or jeweled, and plaster statues instead of concrete. It apparently worked as they became very rich.<\/p>\n

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Donor Kebaps<\/p><\/div>\n

For dinner we went to the Viktualienmarkt and ended up at the local Doner Kebap place where we had Kebaps and two cheap beers. Our stomachs filled and us being tired,we soon turned in for the night.
\nCNC<\/p>\n

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness” – Mark Twain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Expenses
\n1.10E- German deodorant- Is it stronger than Charlie?
\n1.79E- Pizzabread snack from bakery
\n12.20E- 2 Doner Kebaps and 2 beers
\n80E-pension<\/p>\n

Miles walked – 8.5 Miles. 14890 steps<\/p>\n\n\t\t