La Chaim

Coming on this trip I remember talking to my mom about the different things I wanted to see during my short stay here. I told her the obvious places that I wanted to see like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Hofbrauhaus, ect. Among these, I added that I wanted to see a concentration camp. After learning about concentration camps and the Holocaust for the better part of my adolescence, I wanted to make it a priority to experience one while in Europe.
When we planned our weekend trip to Munich, I told my group that going to the Dachau concentration camp was main priority for me. I mean, we’re here, why not try to see it? I must admit, before going to Dachau, I really had no idea what to expect. I didn’t even know if it was even one of the more devastating concentration camps. Boy, was I wrong.
Walking upon the concentration camp, I couldn’t help but notice the weather. The one-day we were in Munich was a really cold one, which really went along with the depressing mood of the concentration camp. After getting lost, we finally got a taxi that would take us straight to the camp.
When walking into the actually concentration camp, there was an old building that was made into a museum. I am glad I went into this and walked around, because if I had not, I would not be able to understand the devastation of the camp.
In the museum part of the camp I learned that Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp that opened in Germany. Located near the town of Dachau, it opened on March 22 of 1933. Dachau was also the first regular concentration camp and was established on abandoned factory grounds south of Germany.
First established for political prisoners, Dachau served as a model for other concentration camps to follow. Dachau was also called the “school of violence” and in the twelve years of its existence it had over 200,000 prisoners from all over Europe.
The camp was occupied from 1933 to 1960. At the beginning, prisoners were mainly German leaders that were detained for political reasons. While going through the Dachau museum, I found that in 1938, a significant population of German Jews were added to the camp. These German Jews would be the majority of deaths at the Dachau.
Walking through the museum at the concentration camp, I found that there were many prisoners there and I read that there were not a lot of records to how many people died at the camp. This to me was unsettling because with the high security that they had there, how could one not be counted?
Walking through Dachau was really interesting to me because it was unlike anything I had ever imagined. In high school we went to the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. When going through there I really could grasp what it was like to live during that time and experience what the Holocaust was like. This was my only real expectation of what the Dachau concentration camp was going to be like. Going to Dachau though, I was in shock because I found that it was more of a reality of the actual event. It was crazy to me how I was in the same room as where thousands slept, and were killed.
The place that got me the most emotional was the room where they would cremate all of the bodies. It just gave me a sick feeling being in this building. The building we walked to was farther out from the others. It really made me wonder what this building was used for. Walking into the building that looked completely normal from the outside had a totally different feel when walking inside. Walking into the first room it looked like a big over. Differ brick kennels were placed in this room. This room would be the room where they would burn the bodies of those who died. It made me feel a little sick to my stomach because I was standing in a room where so many innocent people were put to death.
The next room we would go into would be the room where most of the people would lose their lives. Walking from the “oven” room, we went into an open room, but was very dark. Although I didn’t have a tour guide, I found out from another group that this room was the gas chamber. I remember learning about the Holocaust in high school and learning about these gas chambers. Used as supposed “showers”, many prisoners were brought into a room to take of their clothes before they would bathe. After taking off their clothes, they headed into the room and waited for the supposed shower. Looking around the room, I noticed fake faucets that would be a trick to the prisoners expecting a shower. This room to me because the most affecting because it made the whole experience more of a reality. After leaving this building, we were all a little quiet because we were simply trying to swallow what we had just seen.
Although Dachau was a sad experience, I am glad that I went. I am glad that I could see this artifact that is so important to our worlds history. Going to Dachau made the reality of the Holocaust more real and definitely opened my eyes to the hate that has gone on in the past. I hope that those who visit Dachau in the future get this same impression.

Most everyone has been to Disney world and have seen the Magic Kingdom’s Cinderella castle. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3c/TDL_Cinderella_Castle_New_Color.jpg/200px-TDL_Cinderella_Castle_New_Color.jpg This is a magical palace where most children especially little girls dream of going into and pretending for a day that they are a princess. The inspiration for the Cinderella’s castle is in Germany and is called Neuschwanstien. This palace was built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. It was a fairytale place that was vastly different in style from his childhood home Hohenschwangu, which was decorated in the Gothic style http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/idea/index.htm. The style of this castle was simpler and not as ornate as the newer and more famous castle of Neuschwansiten. There was more reason to build the castle than to just have some fantasy. In 1866 Bavaria lost a war to Prussian and was made to remove the king’s right to a army during war. This basically took away his power. After this Ludwig was put more into a fantasy world where he would eventually be fully removed from power http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/idea/index.htm. King Ludwig II was greatly influenced by the writer Richard Wagner. The relationship between these two was long and close and it was Wagner’s stories that inspired some of the internal decoration of the castle. The name of the palace was even named after a character in one of his plays, The Swan King. The style of decoration of Neuschwanstien is a mix between a new Versailles and Christian kingship in the Middle Ages. http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/ludwig/biography.htm. These include a Romanesque, Gothic, and Byzantine architecture (this is in the Throne Room).

The cornerstone of the Palace was laid in September 1869. It wasn’t until 1873 that the gatehouse was done and King Ludwig was able to live in the house and observe the construction for the rest of the palace. He would only live in the palace for 170 days until he was removed from his position and then his mysterious death occurred. King Ludwig would never see the palace completed to it 200 rooms.

The interior of the finished part of the castle is remarkable and covers only 6000 square meters. The biggest room to be completed is that of the hall of Singers. This is a theatrical room that was designed after Wartburg. This was a 13^th century castle in Thuringia, Germany. This was highly decorated room that was used only for the King as a place where he could place out his medieval fantasy of the Kings of old. The other greatly impressive room was that of the Throne hall. This room is done in the Byzantine style and is modeled after the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche in Munich http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allerheiligen-Hofkirche . The room takes up both the 3^rd and 4^th floors, but was not totally finished. The throne room does not have a throne. The floor is one of the masterpieces of this room is the floor mosaic. This was completed after the King’s death but is breathtaking in its complexity. All of this beauty came at a cost for the King who by the time that he was kicked out of his position he owed 14 million for the construction for the construction of the palace. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuschwanstein_Castle.

King Ludwig never intended for his palaces to be open to people other than his servants. But 6 weeks after his death in 1886 the administrators of his estate allowed paying visitors to enter his castle. This provided a steady stream of income in which to repay his debt and it has also created one of the most popular and famous castles in Europe. There are 6,000 visitors a day totaling to 1.3 million a year. This might have upset the King But it has given more to his reputation of a mysterious and fairy-tale King http://www.neuschwanstein.de/englisch/palace/index.htm.

Being at this castle was sort of an ordeal to get and the day that we went it was raining all day. In the end though it was very interesting and the rain gave the castle an eerie fog behind the castle that provided it with more mystery. I really enjoyed being at the castle and seeing all of the great examples of architecture in one place. It was a very picturesque and beautiful town.

Neuschwanstein: The Dream Castle

The country of Germany is known for having a beautiful mountainous landscape and cloudy, wet climate in the summer months (CIA World Factbook). This weekends’ climate certainly did not go against the norm in Munich and Fussen, Germany. We left the sunny, warm Prague on Friday around 5:00 PM and did not get to Munich until around 11:00 PM and then had to leave again on Sunday morning at 7:20 AM. Since we knew that we were not going to have much time we decided to plan ahead and scheduled a trip to Fussen, Germany on Saturday in order to visit King Ludwig II’s castles, Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau. Without checking the weather or even looking at the window in the morning I decide to wear a tank top, crop pants, sandals, and luckily my rain jacket. On the way to the train station it was chilly, yet I thought to myself “nice job with the clothing decision, I think it was definitely cool enough to wear pants”. Little did I know that I was going to wish I would have worn warm boots, a winter coat and gloves. It literally rained from the time we stepped off the train in Fussen at 11:00 AM until the moment we got back to our hostel at 10:00 PM that night. There were five of us who went to see the castles and only one of us brought an umbrella and only two of us had packed rain jackets. Let’s just say not one of us was able to stay dry during our visit of King Ludwig II’s amazing castles located in the Bavarian Alps. King Ludwig grew up in the Hohenschwangau Castle, which was large but compared to the one that he had built; it seemed like just a baby. We went through this one first and as we were walking through I was seriously amazed at all of the amazing paintings and interior design planning that went into decorating the interior of the castle. The style of art and architecture were from the 19th century castle romanticism era. While King Ludwig lived there most of his life with his parents and brother, he is still known for his creation of Neuschwanstein, since it is the castle that Disney used to create the castle that every little girl dreams about, Cinderella’s castle.
We did not get to see all of the rooms, but we were shown the second floor which was King Ludwig’s mother’s floor. She had her own living room, dining room, dressing room, and bedroom. The bedroom had a door and staircase leading up to the king’s bedroom. Our guide told us that this was their “hanky panky” room. I could not get past how strange the concept of having separate living quarters from your spouse is. I definitely understand the need for personal space, but I feel like a separate eating, living, and sleeping area seemed a little extreme! The third floor was where the king’s quarter’s were and while they were larger than the queen’s they still did not seem that large when one is thinking about a castle. In the king’s quarters there was a telescope where King Ludwig would look out and watch the progress of his castle being built, since they are located within viewing distance from one another. It was neat to see that King Ludwig waited and was anticipating the day when his dream castle would be finished so that he could live there.
Neuschwanstein took twenty-three years to build and King Ludwig was only able to live in his castle for 72 days until he died in 1886 of an unknown cause. Many of those years of construction were after his death. His castle that he had built was not only gigantic, but it also was very technologically advanced for its’ time during the mid 19th century. The castle had running water through a system where there was a line up in the mountains about the castle and the water would come down from this point and provide water to the entire castle. It also had a telephone, which I found odd since our guide told us that there was only one other place that had a telephone, so that was the only number that they could call. In the castle there were 52 rooms, but only 17 of them were ever finished. It makes me sad to think that King Ludwig’s castle will never be finished. He waited many years for it to be built and only got to live in it for a three month period, which I felt was pretty depressing. The castle was built to be a refuge “sacred and out of reach” yet today it is ironically one of the largest tourist attractions in Bavaria. (http://www.german-way.com/neuschw.html).
The tourism that this small populated city in Germany has received due to King Ludwig’s castles is astonishing. With over 6,000 guests a day in the summer coming to visit the castles it has really allowed for jobs and economic growth in Schwangau. Due to this, the people have really taken time and have put in 11.2 million euros into maintaining the castles.(http://goeurope.about.com/cs/germany/p/ludwig_castle.htm) While they have dished out quite a large sum, the economic awards have to be worth it, and the castles that were built were so beautiful that 1.3 million people come to visit it every year. Not even Walt Disney, the most famous fairytale writer could create a castle as beautiful as King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein near Fussen, Germany. Although the day was miserably wet and cold, the visit to see these castles was definitely worth it and it is a tourist site that I would recommend everyone go see!

Here is a site that has some more information about the castle and ticket prices:
http://www.letsgo-europe.com/Germany/Neuschwanstein/

Nom Nom Nom- Munich

German tradition and cuisine have been integrated into my life since I was a child. Having grandparents that are basically pure German and Austrian has helped me experience a bit of what it feels like to be German. From celebrating St. Nicholas day (learn more about this tradition: http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=87 ) to eating/making wiener schnitzel on several occasions throughout the year, I have truly loved that part of my heritage and was excited to finally see the culture first handedly in Munich.

Arriving in Munich that Saturday, I felt both anxious and somewhat exhausted. We had left Prague around 6 am and had arrived in Munich around 3 pm. Not only did the train seem endless but we arrived to find Munich rainy and cold. Having only but a few hours before we would inevitably pass out, we decided to visit the famous Hofbrauhaus for some traditional German cuisine. Located just outside Munich's main city center, the restaurant towers 3 stories high and has multiple indoor and outdoor dining areas including many beer gardens (check out the menu and architecture here: http://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/). Walking into the magnificent restaurant, I suddenly felt overwhelmed. The first floor contained what seemed to be around 60 long tables that sat 10 people each and all seemed to be taken already. As we searched for a table, I noticed almost all of the current customers seemed to be German families rather than tourists. This surprised me because I had heard that it was more of a tourist location. After a few minutes of searching, we were directed to the third floor by a waitress. She was in traditional German dress (shown below and explained in:http://www.about-germany.org/culture/tradfashion.php) and was carrying 6 one liter mugs of beer, her grace was very impressive.

The third floor turned out to be an even larger dining hall with a stage. We were seated parallel to the stage and began our meal by ordering the traditional Munich Beer. Just then, a group of 4 traditionally dressed German couples took the stage. A band, including a harp player, began to play folk music and the couples danced. In the middle of the dance, the boys formed a square on stage and did a series of synchronized rhythmic claps. They used there chests, thighs, and shoes to create a beat that coincided with the music (It looked very similar to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bv5_FKxABjw&feature=related). After they finished, the dining customers applauded and many even gave a standing ovation. I could definitely tell which customers were German by their facial and overall physical expressions after the performance. This event reminded me of the article we read in geography entitled, "How Soccer Explains the World...” because it shows a historical artifact that has come to shape Germany's national identity. From the food and beer to the dance performance, almost everything in that restaurant signified traditional historic values of Germany.

After enjoying the dance performance and the cold beer, our food had arrived. I had decided on wiener schnitzel and the very sight of it made my mouth water (how to prepare this meal:http://www.ehow.com/how_2054141_make-wiener-schnitzel.html) . It seemed to be one foot of pure deliciousness garnished with lemon. Luckily for me, it looked just as good as it tasted. Just one bite of the savory meat, took me back to my childhood and to the moments when I would indulge in this very meal in my Grandma's kitchen. At that moment, I took a sort of German pride in the food. Even though, I obviously don't live in Germany I still felt at home in the traditional environment and was proud to tell my traveling companions about my German roots.

This experience gave me a first hand look at nationalism and what defines national identity. The traditional cuisine reminded me of the article written by F. Parasecoli that addressed food as a means of creating a sense of nationalism. This restaurant did just that. The menu was purely homemade traditional German cuisine and the pride shown by the German servers/customers was clear. The food was homemade and fresh which shows what types of things the Germans value when preparing their food. In addition, the fact that many of the customers were German families shows that they are trying to preserve traditional values even in more tourist locations. To all future students, I would strongly recommend trying to visit somewhere that means something to your heritage. It is weird the sense of pride you feel for the countries where your ancestors originated.

When people hear about Munich, most think of an exciting city with plenty of beer drinking, sight seeing and sausage. That was my first impression before I went as well. I thought it would be very exciting to visit the Houfbrau house and see the beer gardens. In fact, that was how I spent nearly all the first day, and I was not disappointed. The second day, however, was completely different. My group and I decided to tour Dachau and learn about the region’s checkered past.

At 11:00am that morning, we had just finished breakfast and were heading to Mariaplatz, the main square of Munich. It was there we were supposed to meet our tour group. On the way, however, we were enticed by the street meat, and stopped to eat some sausage. We ended being a few minutes late to the tour, but I didn’t mind, because that was the best meal I had all weekend.

When reached the meeting point, we were ushered by our guide Katie onto the metro to go to Dachau. After a short metro and bus ride, we emerged into a completely different environment. The city and people were gone, replaced by woods and a sleepy small town. The cars and tours were also gone, creating a very quiet atmosphere. It all seemed very surreal. How could such an atrocity happen in such a tranquil place? Had I not been led there, I would have thought I was lost. The group leaders knew where we were going however, and led us down a gravel path with trees and a few buildings. We eventually came to a clearing with a moat and gate house with the words, “Arbeit Macht Frei” meaning, “Work Makes You Free.” Beyond the gates was a huge gravel square almost a kilometer across. At this point I immediately knew where I was.

The first thing Katie talked about was the mental torture the Nazis inflicted on the inmates. Even the doors into camp were a form. Inmates saw them and thought that if they worked hard, they might be set free. The grim reality however, was that the harder they worked, the more likely they were to die. Other forms included having pockets in their pants even though it was illegal to put their hands in them and having shampoo in the general store even though all the prisoners had shaved heads.

Walking across the spare was an experience. It was very bewildering thinking I did not want to be there for more than an hour or so, but then realizing that the prisoners had to stay there most of their lives (if they were lucky). Many other people simply died due to lack of food, clothing, or disease. Towards the end of the camps existence, the capacity was well over 20 times what it was when it was first opened, food was at the lowest quality, and disease was highest. Exacerbating the situation was that there was no escape for prisoners. They had to constantly deal with the death around them. If someone were to die in the night, they would have to physically drag them out to Role Call Square and get them counted.

Individuals in the camp were divided up by religion, ethnicity, and race. Each person had to wear a certain color triangle in a certain direction. If the triangle was pointed up, it meant they were from outside Germany. If it was pointed down, they were foreigners. Red was for political prisoners, blue for Jews, brown for Russians, etc. Prisoners in the camp, while all were treated badly, received relatively better or worse treatment based on the color. Jews had the worst experience, while Jehovah’s Witnesses had it the best. I thought this was interesting because even though they were all sent to die, the Germans still divided them up.

The end of the war was still not an end to the suffering. Individuals had to return to whatever homes and family they had left, if any at all. Even if they were lucky enough to have family alive, they still had to deal with all the suffering they had been through and live in a society that would view them differently.

At the end of the war, Most of the concentration camps and all of the extermination camps were located in Eastern Europe. This was because there were higher concentrations of ‘undesirables’ there. One small benefit, however, was that the coal quarries in Bulgaria were liberated early, which stopped the Germans from killing and burning more humans beings in the ovens.

I would definitely recommend a trip to Dachau to any person traveling to Munich. If you are limited on time, however, maybe forgo the tour part and just travel their on your own. I feel that it gave me a better understanding of the city, and how its residents deal with the past. It was not just a huge party, instead I had a glimpse at what Munich is actually like.

A Collision of Worlds

As someone who has been taking German classes in one way or another for the better part of six years now, I simply could not turn down the opportunity to spend a weekend exploring two of Germany’s most famous cities: Berlin and Munich. Berlin is a capital city steeped in history, both glorious and infamous, and Munich exudes a character that few other destinations in the world can match. Although I had already spent some time in both of these cities two years ago, I felt like going back a second time could give me somewhat of a different perspective on both places. After my first visit, I had found Munich to be much more interesting and charming than Berlin, but I feel like that feeling has somewhat changed the second time around. Munich is still a city better suited to finding a truly ‘German’ experience, but I feel like I have a much greater respect for all of the history surrounding Berlin after going back for a second trip. Standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate where the wall used to stand and seeing the Reichstag right next to it, I could just feel the historical magnitude of that one single location.

The Reichstag (German Parliament building), right next to the Brandenburg Gate, is a symbol for the German people. Originally opened in 1894, it has served as the home to the German government at different points throughout history, with the notable exceptions of Berlin Wall years and the Third Reich. After a 1933 fire, which provided opportunity for increased Nazi control, the building was severely damaged, and after heavy bombing during WWII it was virtually destroyed. The Reichstag was never completely restored until after the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990, and it didn’t begin housing Parliament again until 1999. One interesting feature of the building’s architecture after restoration is a clear dome that was placed over the room where the German Parliament conducts all of its activities. The dome is open to the public, provides a panoramic view of the city, and allows the people to actually see their government in action. From a symbolic standpoint, it represents transparency and the constant desire of the German people and government to atone for their past mistakes. (http://rol.vn/weben/chuyende/thegioi/2009/10/19/031444/975/) It shows the willingness of the people to make sure that an entity like the National Socialists is never again allowed to rise to prominence. Ever since I began taking German classes six years ago, I’ve always found it interesting that we as Americans tend to still view the Germans in a negative light because of their past. I am certainly guilty of making some of the same jokes as everyone else, but with that said, I think we all need to have a better understanding of what Germany has gone through and the actions they are taking to make sure that their past never again becomes their present. Today’s Germans understand what it means to be free perhaps better than any American ever can, and I feel like we need to give them a little bit of credit for that.

Standing in the middle of Berlin at the location where the Wall once stood, it becomes very easy to see the differences in development between the East and the West. It’s interesting how a border like the Berlin Wall caused people who had shared a common culture for centuries prior to grow so far apart in just under thirty years. It was the border between the two dominant forces of the 20th Century: Western capitalism and Soviet communism, and the success of the former compared to the latter is quite evident. Germany has actually experienced quite a bit of difficulty since reunification in adapting the citizens of the former East to the nation’s capitalist economy, and it continues to be an issue even today. ( http://german-history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the-asymmetry-of-german-reunification) It’s incredibly interesting how one border could cause such a large shift in such a relatively short period of time.

To me, Berlin is the city that best represents every major event of the 20th Century. It symbolizes a war which changed literally everything that all of us understand about the world and its workings. It symbolizes the Cold War and the tensions between capitalism and communism. It symbolizes a people and their ever-enduring desire to put to rest the stain of the Nazi party and become one with the rest of the Western world. The historical context of the city is simply overwhelming, and it’s a place that I feel to be one of the top destinations in Europe.

Munich: A Metropolis of Past and Present

After getting my traveling sea legs underneath me with a trip to Amsterdam, I felt a bit more prepared for my trip to Munich. I knew very little about the city before going, and certainly was not aware of the big city-feel it offers.

Although Munich’s history dates back many hundreds of years, it is most prominently known in the modern mind for its role the first and second World Wars and for being the birthplace of Hitler’s Nazi regime; the beer hall where he first attempted to seize power is located in the city. After heavy damage in WWII, the city was rebuilt but retained most of its original structure. Today it is regarded as one of the safest, cleanest and most thriving cities in Europe.

Although the city may have undergone a dramatic modernization after the war, I recognized a diverse mixing of the past and present that makes Munich a must–see destination for tourists. The atmosphere in Munich is built upon a great pride in the German identity. You can find natives dressing in traditional German clothing while eating original German cuisine in the many beer halls and gardens located throughout the city. Nowhere is this identity more apparent than at the famous Hofbrauhaus. Although regarded by some as being extremely touristy, I got the sense that the crowd was equal parts natives and visitors. The bands, dancers, drinking, and food combine to provide the quintessential German social experience.

A unique aspect of the city that I noticed was a mixing of new and old architectural structures. The Marienplatz is exemplary of this phenomenon. Here you can find the city square with the Old and New Town Halls as well as the famous Glockenspiel. What struck me were the modern stores that have actually been installed within the New Town Hall. I thought such an ornate and visually spectacular structure would remain untouched, but in the vein of Munich’s combination of new and old, shopping is intertwined with a very historical experience. This can be seen along the various “royal avenues” where such places as the state parliament and National Theatre are found in close proximity to modern venues.

On my sobering visit to the Dachau concentration camp, I gained a greater sense of the modern history for which Munich is so well known. The beautiful, sunny day was no deterrent from giving me feelings of overwhelming sadness and awe during my experience at the camp. Seeing the actual physical structures of the camp helped the Holocaust’s atrocities become much more real and vivid in my mind. Dachau, the first large-scale camp, served as a model for all other camps built during the war. The experimental nature of the camp’s activities provided for shocking and disgusting practices that would be repeated throughout the rest of the Holocaust. The most interesting aspect of my visit to Dachau I found not within the camp itself, but rather when I left. It was hard for me to understand how native Germans, some of whom likely lived during the Nazi reign, could live and raise their children in close proximity to a place that represents such a reprehensible national history, as they do in the suburbs around Dachau. This was just another example of the natural and accepted mixing of past and present indicative of Munich. The people playing basketball a few hundred feet away from the concentration camp simply accept their history as part of their identity, even if it may not be a proud part.

Munich is a modern city with a distinct and rich past. Today it is home to a multitude of foreign populations that contribute to the character of the city through entertainment, cuisine, arts and other facets. The commonplace German identity represented by beer halls and enormous pretzels is present and will remain in the future, but the influx of foreigners is important in the globalization and modernization of the city. Munich is able to maintain a balance of old and new in a unique and inviting way. For the tourist looking for a true and historic German experience within the comforts of modern life need look no further than Munich; I certainly enjoyed what the city, and the sampling of beer halls, had to offer an eager traveler such as myself.

The Deadly Design of Dachau

I walked through the wide open, rod-iron gate which read: Arbeit Macht Frei (“Work Will Set You Free”) and wandered through the dusty gravel to find myself in the middle of Dachau, the very first concentration camp, feeling a thousand different emotions. I was standing in the very place where thousands had stood before me, awaiting roll call, torture, and sometimes death. Dachau concentration camp is just one of thousands of concentration camps scattered around Europe, but it represents a history all its own, a very unique relationship with the nearby population, and such intricately planned buildings and objects.

I took a guided tour through Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site put on by a group called New Europe. If you have three hours to spend, I highly suggest the guided tour rather than the audio tour—because the personal stories made the tour more intimate and relatable. Before entering any of the buildings, we were briefed with a history of Dachau, located just 20 minutes outside of the city of Munich, where the National Socialist (Nazi) party began. What used to be an automotive factory was remodeled into a camp of political reeducation in 1933, only housing the Germans who opposed Nazi regime. Only after the Munich Agreement was signed in 1938 did Austrians become imprisoned here.

When World War II began, prisons got more crowded and due to poor living conditions prisoners were dying rapidly. Camps began to use forced labor and transitioned into extermination camps. It was at this time that other groups besides political adversaries were imprisoned. This included Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and because of Hitler’s fascination with the “Aryan Race”, Jewish people as well. Beginning in 1942, prisoners were made to work as slave laborers for armaments industries to support the war. Even the popular car company, Bavarian Motor Works (BMW), was known to have used prisoners for labor in their automotive factories during this period. Dachau was freed by the American troops in 1945, but had to contain the prisoners until they were free of disease to be released into the world again.

The history of the camp was captivating, but even more so was the extensive planning that went into every tiny detail of the camp. Walking into the camp, all you see is a sea of grey. Grey gravel. Grey rigid, boxy barracks. Grey torture cells. All of this was built in the Nazi-stlye architecture, a form of neoclassical architecture which was meant to convey a message of a timeless Nazi Empire that would last for all of time.

As our tour group took the path of the prisoners, we marched away from the illusory gate, which gave the impression that if a prisoner worked hard they would be set free—one of the many lies they were fed. We walked into the “welcoming building”, which was anything but welcoming. Here prisoners were stripped of everything that was their own—belongings, clothes, hair, name, dignity. In its place they were given a uniform with pockets they would be killed for using, made of the thinnest material and something unrecognizable for shoes, a tag to easily classify them, and a number—as if just one of many waiting in line on a Saturday morning at the bureau of motor vehicles. All of this occurred while staring at large print painted on the wall ahead stating, “No smoking”. A form of torture—reminding the prisoners they didn’t even have cigarettes to smoke.

Urban planning on a smaller scale was witnessed on our tour of the barracks. Although only two remain still standing, that was enough to stain my memory for a lifetime. There were different barracks to represent the different stages of Dachau and the need to fit more people in the already claustrophobic space. The original beds were stacked three beds high but contained dividers and shelves. The dividers gave each prisoner their own bed, no matter how small it was. The shelves were a subtle hint planned to constantly remind the prisoners that they didn’t have any possessions to even place on a shelf. Similar to crowding in big cities, crowding in concentration camps resulted in a loss of personal space, thus a loss in the dividers between beds. This small change almost tripled the number of people that could be contained. I was suffocating at the thought of how horribly one human could ever possibly treat another when we walked into the gas chamber/crematorium, chillingly deemed “Barrack X”. Just one more example of the deceitful scheming of the Nazi’s who labeled it the shower to fool prisoners. Because Dachau was the first concentration camp it was used as a model for the rest of them, this being the trial and original crematorium. Prisoners living in the camp when it was freed would not allow for its destruction so it could serve as a reminder to future generations.

Since the camp has been freed, many architectural changes have been implemented—the first being a series of religious churches and chapels of reconciliation. The one that stands out the most is the Protestant Church which has no square edges at all—exactly opposite of Nazi architecture. Among the many monuments one stands out above the rest. It is a statue of a prisoner with his head held high, hands in his pockets, wearing real clothes. Underneath it says “We honor the dead, to warn the living.” Not only does Dachau’s history serve as a reminder to the local community of Munich, and not even just the German people. Although locals may observe the history in a different light than a survivor, or an outsider like me, this monument is a reminder to all that genocide is not the answer to any problem. I left back through the same open gate, which is never allowed to close again, luckier than a lot of people who once entered it. I left shocked at the cruelty of humanity, sadness for the events that happened there, but with a wealth of knowledge and thankfulness to be who I am and where I am today, with the power to change genocide that still affect the world today.

Where are the Park Rangers?

After and extremely long and exhausting train ride from Prague to Munich, I was finally ready to experience Germany for the first time. Traveling with my good friend Dave and new friend Brian, we didn’t arrive into Munich until about 10:30 Friday night. It has been said that first impressions are everything, but Munich showed me this is not always the case. After getting out of the train station, I found myself feeling the opposite way I did in Amsterdam; I was surprised at how FEW people were walking the streets. Once we checked into our beautiful yet pricey “Hotel Adria” we decided to take a stroll around the central square to find some drinks. One would think in a city with about 1,300,000 people it wouldn’t be hard to find a standard bar open on a Friday night, but this wasn’t the case. The only bars which seemed to be open were bars with all glass windows and candle lit tables, packed with 25-35 year old business professionals. We all agreed those places were not our “scene” and called it a night. At this point I couldn’t help but think how my experience in Prague would completely overshadow Munich, but I was wrong.

Before sleeping on Friday night, I decided to do a little research about the places to go and sights to see. Like most large European cities, a river (the Isar River) flows directly through the urban area which once allowed for easy transportation and trade. This river branches off in many places throughout the city, causing many creeks to run along and underneath roads and sidewalks, leaving countless striking scenes. Again like many old European cities, Munich was once a small town enclosed by a wall, but eventually tore down the wall due to population increases in order to expand further out in Germany. With this expansion came the beautiful and lush green parks, also known as “beer gardens”. Brian, Dave, and I all agreed we had to see these gardens because they are in a huge European city where you will rarely see any green grass within city limits.

http://www.discover-munich.info/about_munich.php

After a hardy breakfast of frosted flakes, coffee and a beautifully bright orange-ish pastel colored peach on Saturday, we were ready to experience my favorite part of the weekend: the beer gardens! As we were making our way onto the giant open lush green grass fields, I couldn’t help but notice something a little different from a park in America; there were naked men lying out under the bright sun everywhere! We all shared a few chuckles realizing this was a simple cultural difference between Europe and America, but it was one that I was not quite prepared for! Seeing naked men all around made me wonder why these gardens were created instead of creating residential areas or industrial areas. I later found out from a Munich tour guide these gardens were created for military soldiers to pursue normal civilian activities like gardening in the 18th and 19th centuries. Walking on the bright green grass made me notice how there was virtually no trash anywhere to be found on the ground. To even more of my amazement, trashcans also seemed nowhere to be found (Another cultural difference from America).

Finally we all made it to our desired destination: the Englischer garden. In this garden live music was playing with a large sized building which sold everything from huge beer steins to seemingly every cooked animal you could imagine (and of course many sausages!). Wonderfully large trees shaded the sun from reaching our backs while sitting on the benches, which made this beer garden visit especially tranquil. After we finished our steins, it was time to head to the rumored fan-favorite beer garden in Munich: the Seehaus beer garden. In about a five minute walk, we came upon a large picturesque pond filled with mallard ducks, swans, and many other birds. The Seehaus garden was located directly on this large pond, with the benches and tables no more than a foot away from the water! We all bought another round of steins, this time to my dislike, a very sweet tasting beer. Fortunately the surroundings around me made my girly beer still taste like heaven :)

The beer gardens were the most soothing and relaxing experience I have had since arriving in Europe, and It completely changed my perception about Munich as a European city! If anyone is to ever ask me about Munich in the future, the first thing I will tell them is about the beer gardens. Even though Munich is a city with wonderful architecture, it was the beer gardens which distinguished this city from all other European cities I have seen so far on this trip.

Nationalism in Germany at its Finest

Nationalism can simply be defined as an extreme form of patriotic feeling. In class, we have greatly emphasized this topic, with special importance on European nationalism. It is evident that the politics of Europe are around us each and every day. However, politics are more than about differences, but about meanings and belief systems such as ideas, social practices, and spatial expressions. This can be cumulatively referred to as culture. The culture that is unique to various individuals and territories can have material consequences. One culture that is of particular importance in Europe is that in Germany. This weekend, we traveled to Munich for two days and saw some inspiring sites.

At 7:30am the six of us rolled out of our overnight train out into the buzzing Munich train station. We grabbed a quick breakfast and checked into our hostel right across the street. This hostel has definitely been the nicest one that we have stayed in, by far. We were expecting it to be deserted with people at 8:00am, but it was just the opposite. There were probably 30 backpackers in the lobby waiting to check in. With all of the cultural diversities we have experienced in Europe so far, I have to admit that this atmosphere was comforting. Being able to check into our clean room, while speaking to the hostel workers in English, made it a great start to the day.

We decided the best way to begin exploring Munich would be to take a free walking tour of the city. We arrived at the designated meeting area and divided into smaller groups. This made the tour more interesting, as well as less impersonal. Our tour guide was a young, lively, interactive, Texan native named Kevin. At each site we stopped at during the whole four hours was filled with factual information that was presented in an entertaining way so that he was not simply lecturing us. I really do believe that the personality and enthusiasm that these guides bring to tourists like us really have a significant impact on our impressions of the city.

As we walked from monuments, to churches, to plazas, to other significant landmarks, it was clear that Kevin was passionate about his country. Not only was Kevin enthused to share his knowledge with us, but was also eager for us to have even just a glimpse into his German culture. His sense of patriotism, or nationalism, was that of the utmost loyalty and appreciation for this country. When he paused to talk about Kristallnacht, Kevin seemed to get choked up. This event, in November of 1938, is known as “the spark that ignited the Holocaust”, or “Night of Broken Glass”. November 9^th and 10^th of 1938, the Nazis staged the destruction of hundreds of Jewish owned or associated buildings. This night began the Nazi tyranny against the Jews: the Holocaust. Millions of innocent people were forced to live in horrible conditions, work for hours on end, and many were murdered. This website from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum offers supplementary information regarding this anti-Jewish movement.

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/kristallnacht/

When Kevin finished our tour, he said, “If there’s one thing I want all of you to remember, it is that us, as Germans, are not proud of the events that took place in the 1930s. However, we are aware that these events did happen and do not want to cover it up and pretend that it is of no importance. We can use this history to demonstrate that the Nazis were not monsters. They were human beings. We are all human beings. The Holocaust can be used as a symbol of what mankind is capable of. We have monuments across the city of Munich to remind us of this, and to make sure that nothing like this will ever happen again.” These sincere words touched each of us on Kevin’s tour.

The next day, the six of us were inspired to visit the Dachau concentration camp. This camp was set up in 1933 as a “school of violence” and a model for further concentration camps. Ironically, the gate reads “Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Work will Set you Free”. From the moment we walked inside, until we took the train back to Munich, the atmosphere was solemn. I am certain that each of us were merely attempting to encompass the horrifying events that took place under our own feet. Even with the blue skies and warm weather, the environment was anything but pleasant. After visiting Dachau, many aspects clearly coincided with class material. One article we read, in particular, focused on landscapes and how tangible monuments hold historical meanings and important of past events. This memorial site holds a significant meaning to those who are knowledgeable about the Holocaust and are devastated by the outcome. Dachau remains as a reminder to all who set foot on site that this terrorism of the Jewish population was real and had real consequences. One monument, in particular, consisted of corpses that were intertwined to resemble an electric fence. This architecture combines both the fence that enclosed the territory of the concentration camp, as well as the deadly nature of the Jewish extermination. This tour of Dachau paralleled to Kevin’s statement about not dismissing that the Holocaust existed, but acknowledging the capability of human beings as mass murderers. More information on this concentration camp can be found at the website of the Jewish Virtual Library.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/dachau.html

"Work sets you free"

“Arbeit Macht Frei” or “Work sets you free.” These are the words that the prisoners saw as they entered Dachau Camp. These words encouraged the prisoners that if you work hard enough, the Nazis will release you. Little did they know that the phrase was strategically placed there to mentally and emotionally torture. Dachau was the first concentration camp and it was the only one to span the entire reign of the Third Reich. It is located about 16 km from Munich or in my case, about a 15-minute train ride. After my tour, I learned all about Dachau’s historical and political importance to Germany.

Dachau was originally an ammunition factory during World War I and it provided lots of jobs to the local German people. The ammunition factory was closed as a result of the Treaty of Versailles and consequently many people lost their jobs. In 1933, the National Socialist Party, the Nazis, established Dachau as the first concentration camp. During Dachau’s first stage, people were interned for political opposition to the Nazis. The model of the building that I saw was not built to holdthe shear numbers of the people that were detained and tortured there. Each stage of was marked on the tour with a different room. The first room showed the initial number and set-up of the barracks.

The second stage included racial discrimination and increased amounts of terror at the camps. My tour guide made an interesting distinction between prison and concentration camp. “A prison is usually of citizens of that country, people who have rights in the country, where a concentration camp, all of its detainees are striped of all their clothes, hair, and basic human rights.”

The third room the tour guide, Marcin, took us to was the final stage of the construction of the Dachau barracks. Basically just rows on rows of bunk beads. This time, there was no distinction between beds nor the people that slept in them. This was designed so that more people would fit in each bed and the Nazis found any reason they wanted to put a person in the camp. It was sickening to think about the number of people that were in each bed. It is even more tragic to think about the living conditions of the people that lived in these beds.

My least favorite part of the tour was when we walked to Barrack X. It was disturbing because that was the site of the gas chamber and crematorium. It was so eerie walking through the building where mass murders of innocent people occurred. The first room in the gas chamber building was the “waiting room” where the people awaited what they were told was “showers.” The next room was the shower room and the Nazis had placed showerheads in this room to continue the psychological torture. The next room was the crematorium where all the dead bodies were burned after they were gassed in the "showers."

Dachau was not the only camp to have these conditions and terrors. I took the picture below from the museum on site because it is a map that shows the number, size, and location of the other concentration and extermination camps. An interesting point about the map is that there are no boarders. The camps were all over Europe because of Germany’s and the Nazi’s strength and aggression and therefore boarders are invisible. The horror of the Nazis witnessed no boarders.

It was so difficult to walk around on those grounds and just imagine all the people who had lived there and those who died at the hands of the SS guards. Needless to say it was a quiet evening for me because I was trying to understand and come to terms with what I had witnessed that day. I know that it was hard for me to deal with what I saw and learned but it is impressive to see how the Germans have come to terms with it and accept it as part of their history. In 1945, the US Army liberated the people of Dachau. Since then, the camp serves as a reminder to the Germans to, “ Honor the dead to warn the living” (written on statue below). The Germans built this memorial of the former concentration camp in order to do just that, honor the people who died at Dachau, in order to warn the living that this should never happen again.

This experience was a very meaningful one for me and it is something that I will remember for the rest of my life. I recommend the tour with NewEurope because it included transportation and the tour guides are very knowledgeable. It was a lengthy, paid tour but I would do it over in a heartbeat because I know that I learned a lot of important historical information. There are many accounts and information about life at Dachau or the brutality of the SS guards and information can be found at the Dachau site.

The Dangers of Extreme Nationalism

Walking down the cold, narrow cement surface, I looked to my right and peered within the four walls of a tiny room inside the bunker. I began reading the description on the dark and weathered wall, but was disrupted by a tour guide stopping behind me and beginning his explanation to the other foreign tourists. I listened as the words began echoing quietly, but sternly from his mouth. “These rooms were constructed for torture. When the prisoners acted out, or if they allegedly broke the rules, this is where the Nazis would take them. They would separate this tiny room into fours, preventing the prisoners from sitting down. Yes, they had to stand here for days, in complete darkness and endure physical acts of brutality for merely being a Jew. After weeks of enduring physical brutality, they were given a blunt knife and a piece of rope, and were told to kill themselves by morning. If they refused, the torture would start all over again…” the guide began to move forward but I was struck with a sense of shock, and surprisingly I felt a tear fall down my cheeks. So this was Dachau.

Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany in March of 1933 (http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/dachau.html). I never imagined the morbidity of the camp on the 10 mile trip from Munich on the first buzzing subway that gave me butterflies when rapidly crawling through the tunnels, or on the touristy bus ride through a small neighborhood. I was filled with a sense of anxiousness and excitement upon entering the camp. Over the years Nazi Germany has continuously been talked about in school, whether reading about it in novels, listening to speakers, or seeing pictures in textbooks, I was in slight disbelief that I was actually going to visit one. However, as I stepped off the bus onto the gravel walkway, it was apparent the seriousness and reverence that was written on the visitors’ facial expressions. As I walked down the tree-lined road towards the camp, a chilling wind caused my own arm hairs to rise. Silence was unanimous as I walked through the gates and into Dachau.

As I began my excursion of the camp, I could not help but try to in vision myself as a prisoner of Dachau based on my religion or ethnicity. A person’s sense of place occurs from cultural artifacts that identify themselves in terms of their beliefs and ways of living. Religion is something that is prevalent and defining in most people’s lives, and was a crucial determinant of the lives of Jewish people in the mid-20^th century. Jewish people in Germany were persecuted from 1933 to 1445 under the Third Reich, and Dachau especially sponsored killing, which by the end of the war was responsible for the capturing of 206,206 prisoners and at least 31,951 deaths of innocent lives (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005214). As I walked through the museum and observed the main halls, I read about the medical experiments that scientists conducted on prisoners. As a chill ran up my back, it dawned on me that Dachau was a lawless community run by the hatred and detestation of a certain religious group or any individual who was anti-German, or anti-Hitler. Within the walls, or boundaries of Dachau, the coalition of the National Socialist Party had the ability to fate any prisoner who was ceased and brought within the camp gates. German nationalism during World War II became fanatic, violent, and militant. Nationalism is usually associated with pride and adherence, the waving of flags, the pledging of allegiance. No one ever conceives that a strong and devout sense of nationalism will lead to experimentation, alienation, torture, and extermination.

Yet, as I roamed the narrow wooden halls of the barracks, I saw the beds crammed together, nearly touching the ceiling, and realized how dangerous a pious sense of nationalism can be. I was alarmed on how spacious the actual camp was, and was astonished to learn the camp had been divided by the camp area which consisted of 32 barracks, and a crematorium used to dispose of the numerous lifeless bodies there were merely numbers to the Nazi soldiers. Nationalism at is most extreme classified a group of people either by religious connotations or an opposition to the Nazi regime, and held them together by en electrified barbed-wire gate, a ditch, and a wall with seven guard towers, manipulating this instituted boundary for excessive violence.