The Past, The Present and a Simple Rock

The train ride from Venice to Munich is providing me with some wonderful examples if I should ever have to answer the question, what is hell like? Our compartment sits six people, which is fine, unless six people actually want to use it. I have to sit up straight, knee to knee, staring at a stranger's head while they stare at mine.

There is an English girl on the train with us, which makes it a bit more bearable. She talks a bit loud, but for once, it is someone annoying me in my own language. I am slightly amused.

The way one feels after spending an entire night on a train is much the same as surviving a cross-Atlantic flight. You just want to shave off all your hair, sit in a warm tub and have pretty women scrub you down with toothbrushes. At least, that is what I would enjoy right now. We both nod off and on during the trip, which only makes me crankier than usual as we roll into Munich. I am not a morning person and this fact is starting to get on Chris's nerves. He tells me to just deal with it, which is fairly bad advice to give someone when they are already at a point that they are unable to deal with most anything. Maybe I need some sort of therapy for this problem, then again, maybe I just need people to leave me the hell alone until noon.

We arrive at the Termond's house. They are not home, but they have left us the key in the mailbox. Chris heads to the laundry room and I head to the shower. Afterwards, I gorge myself on items found in the kitchen then drag myself upstairs and fall asleep. Chris washes all of his clothes and then takes a shower. I am not too sure I understand the order he does things in, but I am sure he is probably thinking, you shower, eat then sleep! Are you mad?

When I wake, the family is home. We pitter around for a bit while I do my laundry, then Chris and I decide to go for a bike ride. We only get a mile down the road and it starts to rain on us. We go back and decide to play basketball in the driveway. The hoop is above the door, but lower than a regulation one, so we take turns slam dunking the ball and feeling macho. We go inside and see if we can help Christa with dinner. She has a radio in the kitchen and I hear a Counting Crows song. I take this as a positive sign and it makes me very happy.

Brian has brought his girlfriend over for dinner. She is really nice and speaks wonderful English. We are fed a meal of roast pork, dumplings and red cabbage. I think I really like dumplings now. We have another in-depth discussion about religion, and Christa and Tanja really get into it. Then Chris and Christa discuss patriotism in Germany.

I sit down with my journal and it hits me that we are only a week away from the end of our trip. It seems to have gone by very quickly and has also dragged at times. The whole England/Scotland part seems like it was an entirely different trip and I am having trouble remembering some of the details. This memory malfunction I inherited from my dad. I try to figure out what I have learned or what sort of epiphany I can share with others, but can come up with nothing better than buy thicker socks. I still have a week to go and perhaps it will all come together in my head soon.

It is morning and I have awakened to the sounds of a light rain. Today is the day we visit Dachau. Chris did not wake me up on time and now I have only thirty-five minutes to get ready. We catch the train into town and I am cranky as ever. I find an apple and some Ritz crackers in my backpack, and this helps calm me down a bit. From town, we have to catch a bus that will take us near the camp, then from there we walk.

The bus is a mix of people and everyone is appropriately quiet for what they are about to experience. Everyone, that is, except the three girls from America. Barbie and her two sorority-sisters talk, laugh and generally look like idiots. Because of their jabbering, we almost miss hearing the driver announce our stop. The loudest of the three is blonde, perky and is wearing what looks like a cheerleading outfit. I only wish I had brought my Canadian patch with me. The bus leaves us off almost six blocks away from the entrance, and we are fortunate to find ourselves walking in front of the girls from the Ima Bigga Ditza Sorority. We distance ourselves as we near the gate.

The entrance is right off the street and from here, we can only see the fence, a large building to our left and a guard tower straight ahead. As we pass the building and come around the corner, we find ourselves standing in the main parade grounds. The ground is covered with gravel and I can only imagine the number of people who engaged death in this area no bigger than a football field.

They use to make them endlessly march here until some fell dead and others were shot. They would have to stand here for hours, in the middle of winter, for no other reason than cruelty. The gray skies above us seem to be a part of the camp setting and I cannot picture any of this bathed in sunlight. I wonder if the sun ever shines here.

Most of the people from the bus head toward the museum, so I decide I am going to walk around the camp first. Chris has already distanced himself from me and I can tell he wants to see it by himself.

First there is the barracks, of which only a replica stands, as the originals were destroyed when the camp was liberated and slowly thereafter. The barracks are said to have housed over ten times the number they were made to. Five or six people occupied each bed and the toilets were in the room next door, of which I only counted eight.

Behind the barracks are rows of cement slabs. They look like concrete lots in a trailer park, but each one represented where a barrack once stood. The number is overwhelming as it stretches the length of the camp, and to think, each one of these was holding up to ten times its allowance. Toward the end of the rows of concrete is a round, brick building with a cross on the front. The plaque says this is the Christian chapel. To the right is another shrine. This one slopes into the ground and has a big Star of David on the gate. It is the Jewish memorial chapel.

I follow the path around and enter a wooded area. There is a tour ahead and I decide to join them. We first come to a clearing that has a low, man-made ridge on one side. It looks like a dirt speed bump. The guide says that this is where they tied people to stakes for target practice. The rise of dirt is for the blood will have somewhere to drain after they are shot. Further down we see another one of these, but this one has been covered over with hundreds of roses. I notice none of them are red and wonder if this is intentional.

Further along we see the gallows, where countless were hung, and a large dirt area with a Star of David in the middle. This is where the ashes of thousands of people were found, all thrown together in one big hole. The guide said that the Germans prison guards would often come here to fill jars with ashes, and then take them to town to sell to the families of prisoners, claiming they were their last remains. The prices were astronomical, but they knew that everyone would pay to have the last remains of a loved one. This went on for years. Across the path is a statue of a camp prisoner. He is bald, his clothes are hanging and his shoes look too big on him, but he is holding his head up high.

We walk along the creek and we see a clearing outside of the gate. That, he tells us, is where they would kill the Russian soldiers. They were shot by the hundreds and no one knows exactly who or how many died this way. No record was kept of these killings. Once in a while, they would take them outside the camp and pretend they were letting them go, but up ahead would be a squad of soldiers waiting for target practice to begin.

I leave the group and walk to the buildings on the right of the parade grounds. The first one is a large hallway with huge doors along its side. I pull open one of the doors and the outside light shows me what looks like a huge closet. There are pipes along the top of the room. These are the gas chambers. Oddly, no one was ever gassed here. Next door is a large room that appears to be a shower. The sign says that this was the camp shower, but was also built as a giant gas chamber.

Further, along I come to a room with two men taking pictures. One is snapping the photograph while the other poses with his foot up on a large brick object. He sees me and hurriedly steps back over the Do Not Cross chain that is strung along the front. After they leave, I notice why he looked so guilty. He had been posing with his leg on top of an oven, the same ovens that were used to cremate tens of thousands of Jews. I hate tourists.

I head across to the barracks, to take one more look inside, and then walk to the museum. As I round the corner, I see Chris. Something makes me stay where I am so he does not see me. There is a stone wall, with the words "Never Again" displayed in five languages. In front of this wall is a square stone, about two feet tall, with a metal lid on top. Inscribed on the side of the stone is "Ashes of the Unknown Concentration Camp Prisoner". On top is where people have left their stones, a part of the Jewish tradition, as a sign of love and respect. I watch as Chris looks around the empty parade ground, picks up a rock and places it on the stone. I decide not to tell him I see him do this, but am glad just the same.

I come around the corner and we go into the museum. The first thing we see is a map of Europe. Each place that had a camp is shown with a red dot. The number of red dots is unbelievable. There must be hundreds. From the red dots, there are arrows, which show the routes prisoners were taken from one camp to another. It explains how far Germans who opposed the government went, how far enemies of war were sent, and then it shows how far the Jews were sent. In the middle of the map is a red dot for Aushwitz, the final destination, and next place you would be sent if you survived Dachau.

Beyond the map are wooden pillars from floor to ceiling. Each one has a black band around it and a countries name printed on it. I can not find anything that explains what this is, but I assume it is a show of respect for those who were killed. The entire room is filled with pillars and we have to find our way through it like a maze, in order to reach the next room.

Along the main room are huge blow-ups of photographs depicting camp life. The first few pictures show Jewish children being led out of the Ghetto by gunpoint. Then we see men and women behind barbed-wire fences, a beautiful woman who has just arrived to the camp and an older gentleman that looks more skeletal than human. Toward the end, the pictures depict various scenes of torture used on the prisoners and we see a woman and her three children being led to the furnaces.

The last picture is of a ghetto. It is almost a beautiful photograph if not for its content. It was taken in the early morning, the sky is fading into light and the fog is still hanging low to the ground. The buildings are nothing more than silhouettes and the streets are completely empty. Below the picture is only one sentence. The Answer to The Question of the Jews.

There is a film that they are showing and we crowd into the theatre with the others. It shows camp life as the Germans filmed it and then what camp life really was like. The look on these people's faces is beyond description. We see the Allied Forces liberate the camp and cheers of joy and tears of relief as they realize their nightmare is over.

They explain that most of the town's people were told it was a meat factory for the war effort, which explained the smoke and the smell. Even top city officials did not know what went on behind the gates. We see them tour the camp after its liberation, a film crew following. They open a door and the camera focuses on hundreds of bodies piled atop one another. The Germans had run out of coal before the Allies arrived and were not able to burn them fast enough. One man turns himself away and the woman behind him has an unobstructed view of the room. The look of horror on her face says it all.

During the movie, the audience is completely quiet, with only the occasional sound of someone crying or gasping. After the liberation of the camp, they show the prisoners that were left, walking out the front gate and onto the road. Now they begin their long walks home, to see if any of their loved ones survived. We can hear the sounds of their footsteps scraping against the paved road. Then very softly, we hear a man's voice say, do not ever forget what you are seeing here, ever.

The lights go up and no one is moving. Myself and at least half the audience are just leaning over and sobbing. No one knows for sure how many people were here, but the Germans records show over 200,000 prisoners. Of these, 30,000 people died in this camp during the twelve years that it was open. Our group shuffles out of the theatre and toward the doors. Beside the exit of the museum is a sign, a famous quote, from Santayana.

Die sich des Vergangenen nicht erinnern, sind dazu verurteilt, es noch einmal zu erleben.

Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.

We leave the museum and everything looks different. It looks less like a historical monument and more like a cemetery. Every corner of this place is where someone died or watched a loved one die. Then I remember something that the tour guide had told his group earlier. Despite the hardships, the bloodshed and the hopelessness, there is not one recorded case of a prisoner having taken his or her own life. I pick up a rock and place it on the square stone next to the wall. Out of love and respect.

We go back to the Termond's and Christa asks me what I thought of the camp. I tell her I really cannot put any of it into words, in fact, I almost feel like I should not be able to. She tells me she understands and had the exact same reaction when she went. She says she sometimes hates recommending people go there, but feels it is only right that people see what humans are capable of. Chris has not said a word about it and I can tell he probably will not. I feel like we have just been to a funeral for a friend who has died needlessly. It leaves me feeling helpless and sad.