germany day 10.....

day 10....(part 1)

today we spent the entire day playing tourist. which is completely acceptable when you go to a foreign country. you need to check things out. even president obama took the time to visit yellowstone when he was in montana.

first we headed to dachau. now, this isn't a place that everyone got all excited about. in fact, i'd say that when you go to germany, feel free to not mention: world war II, hitler, nazis, concentration camps or anything related to said topics, at least to the locals. they really would prefer to forget that part of their history. but for me, because of what i learned in public school, i felt the need to see things. (all the kids in germany go on field trips here, they really don't forget or pretend that it didn't happen, they are all very respectful.)

dachau was a very interesting experience. i felt no need to take pictures during my time there. not that you couldn't take pictures, i just really felt like it shouldn't be a place where you take tourist photos. i did buy some postcards, because i felt the need to support what they are doing there. (and the postcards had all the pictures that i would have taken on my own.) they have taken a very sad, somber place and made it full of educational things. so full that you'd have to spend 2 days there in order to read it all and take it all in. we did not spend that much time. they don't sugar coat things, so be prepared for the truth. they also don't make things sensational or hollywood-style. if it didn't happen there, they will tell you. and if it did, they will tell you that also. there are no embellishments and no censors. i wouldn't bring little kids. wait until everyone is old enough to understand that yelling, screaming, crying or playing isn't something that is acceptable here, at least to me. i don't remember anyone out of line. and personally, i'd recommend that they are old enough to deal with some of the emotions of seeing pictures of the dead. sometimes i didn't feel old enough to be there.

a couple of things really shocked me about dachau. first was that there is a city of dachau. lots of people live there. and the camp isn't in the middle of the city, but it isn't outside of the city either. i fully expected dachau (the concentration camp) to be out in the middle of no where and its not. it is very much in the middle of things. but as soon as you walk through the gate that says "arbeit macht frei" (roughly translated into "work will make you free") you aren't in the middle of a bustling city, you are in the middle of no where.

the second thing that shocked me (and hans and evi) was how much information is there. 20 years ago when evi and hans went there, they said there wasn't nearly as much.

the third thing is how big it was. this place wasn't small. not by any means. not compared to anything. and there were 100s of concentration camps. i thought there were only a few, the few big names that you hear about. but there were so many. when you see a map with all of them listed, it shocks the hell out of you. at least it did me.

after we had completely worn out our eyes from all the reading and learning, we walked around and wore out our legs. like i said, the place was huge. and emotional exhausting.

when we could no longer take any more, we left and headed to munich. because munich seemed like a different day, i'm going to post that separately. also because i took 98 pictures while we were in munich, the first day.