Day 79

Post math exam, Lois, Camella, Deanna, and I marched into the camper van and prepared for the eventful weekend ahead. We nestled in our seats and caught up with my family while we headed south.

Having been to Munich a month before, Lois knew of an excellent eating establishment to visit. The Hofbrauhaus was filled with the dull roar of voices and steins being clinked. We managed to snag the end of a table that already had two women sitting at it. After further conversation, we came to learn that they were also Americans who were from North Carolina. One of the women was visiting the other, whose husband was currently stationed in Germany. I had my first taste of weißwurst and was astonished at the size of the beer and pretzels that everybody had. When dinner was over, we decided to explore the neighboring churches for a while before heading back to our campground. In the morning, my mom made an early breakfast consisting of bacon, eggs, fruit, and toast. It was a rainy morning, so we donned our raingear and headed to the Easter Market in the center of Munich. I managed to secure some pewter steins, gifts for various family members, and a wooden sign that reads “Frohe Ostern!” After everybody got done shopping, we met up at the Maypole and shared our wares.

in front of the Munich Rathaus

Lois then led us to Marienplatz and told us that the clock would start to move a little bit after noon. The growing crowd was getting impatient, and when the little people began to move a collective gasp arose from the congregation. My grandmother had the idea to video it, but quickly gave up after realizing that the first three minutes of the clock’s show is just a bell solo. The two levels of people were comprised of dancers twirling, knights jousting, and flag bearers. Once all the platforms stopped spinning, a wooden owl on the top of all the figurines flapped his wings and made a noise that supposedly resembled a bird. All in all it was slightly underwhelming, but cool nonetheless. As Lois had stated, you must put it into perspective and think that hundreds of years ago, people would have thought that the clock was witchcraft or magic because that kind of technology wasn’t as widespread as it is now.

We walked around and grabbed some wießwurst and schnitzel sandwiches before driving to Dachau. Once at Dachau, we visited the KZ Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. Words and pictures can’t really prepare you for the feelings of disgust and sorrow that sweep over you when you walk through the gate. “Arbeit macht frei” was a cruel joke and seeing it in person made my disdain of the Third Reich grow even more. One of the signs said that the camp was designed to only hold a little over six thousand prisoners, but when the American troops arrived and liberated the camp the number was upwards to thirty thousand. My hometown barely has thirty thousand people and trying to imagine every person in Del Rio squished into the small perimeter was unimaginable. The accounts of the prisoners who had been kept there were chilling and put a lot of things into perspective. Any time I want to complain about being cold or hungry, I’ll think back to the conditions that those people were forced to live and work in. We watched a video about the history of Dachau, and in it were extremely gruesome and graphic images and videos. Seeing little children being torn apart from their parents really got to me and me realize how grateful I should be to have both of mine with me. After we walked out of it, I gave my mom a giant hug and didn’t want to let go. We walked around the camp for another half hour before realizing that we needed to be on our way to the next town. I felt like I couldn’t get out of the prison walls fast enough and didn’t realize that I let out a heavy sigh until my grandmother pointed it out to me. The fact that people could just let go of their humanity and subject people to such torture boggles my mind. I have qualms about shooting a deer that would feed my family and I, yet Nazis would pointlessly abuse actual humans with families, careers, and emotions with no hesitation. I still can’t wrap my head around it. I do know that I’m extremely thankful that I live in a time where the threat of being taken to an internment camp doesn’t loom overhead. The Holocaust survivors who had the strength to go back to these places of terror and create a memorial to their lost families and friends have an immeasurable amount of strength. Nothing bad happened to me when I visited, yet I had trouble staying there for two hours. Dachau is an extremely important place and a morbid reminder of what happened under Hitler and Himmler’s command. The brave men and women who experienced such unimaginable terror and suffering deserve to live on in the annals of history as heroes and survivors; and not just to be written off as victims.