Well that sounded all fine and dandy until we got there and found that Munich was a giant gravel filled, slushy puddle--and I had not brought my boots. After walking around the busy city for a little bit, we grabbed a quick lunch and talked about what we wanted to do next. We decided that there wasn't anything pressing that we wanted to see in Munich that justified an overnight stay. So instead, we thought we would head over to Dachau and see the Concentration Camp and make it a day trip instead.
The New Town Hall in the Marienplatz Square in Munich
The glockenspiel. It recreates a royal wedding in the 16th century.
The Police were out around the square today as there was a big protest going on. We weren't quite sure what they were yelling about but I didn't manage to get a quick picture of a sign being held up.
The outside part of the hand reads: for equal treatment, against xenophobia and racism
A pretty church along one of the side streets.
A very fun and lively band was out playing and dancing around
I really liked the castle like structure connecting the two buildings
FINALLY I found my long awaited giant soft pretzel! Day made! :)
There were also giant gingerbread heart cookies for sale
Munich was very big on roasted nuts. I bought some roasted almonds and they tasted just like the ones I get in Wisconsin!
Om nom nom!
So we used our Bavarian Pass to go back on the train and head towards the city of Dachau. Once there, you catch a quick 10 minute bus ride to the concentration camp site. Along the way we met two guys from Chile on a trip around Europe. They asked us why we didn't leave our bags at the hostel... What?!?! You can do that?? Total inside joke now. We spent the next hour and a half walking around the camp.
On our way to Dachau. They have a nice Path of Remembrance Walk but since our feet were wet and freezing and the bus only took 10 minutes
The bus stop for bus 726
We were riding 1999's Bus of the Year! Haha
Arriving at the camp
The layout of the camp
The mass amount of prisoners that were lined up outside of their barracks
Gate entrance
Honoring the American Soldiers
The gate "Work will set you free"
The roll call grounds
A nice memorial for all of those how resisted the Nazi regime
A map of all of the concentration camps in Europe
The room where the prisoners would enter and be stripped of their clothes and identity
Prisoners' documentation and identification cards
We thought it was interesting that the one man was smiling. I noted that it was probably propaganda for the camp or the prisoner just made a dirty joke about one of the Nazi guards ..
The view of the grounds
Prisoners' closest with their uniform
Remember the first picture of the New Town Hall? This was it in the 1930's and 40's displaying a Nazi flag
An artist depiction of the roll call on the grounds
The international monument
Another pretty monument
The monument with the maintenance building in the back
The camp road leading to the barracks
Me
The prisoners' sleeping area. At most times they had to sleep head to foot to fit the growing number of prisoners being kept there.
The bathroom and washroom area.
This area used to house rows and rows of barracks. See the picture below for a flashback
There were a lot of religious centers on the grounds. This is the picture of the Catholic Chapel
There used to be guard towers that ran along the outer walls of the camp staffed with armed Nazi soldiers. One description sign metioned that some prisoners ran straight at the wire just to end their misery.
Entering the crematorium area
This room stored the dead bodies of prisoners to be cremated
Exactly what the sign says ..
The various cremation furnaces. They could cremate 3-4 bodies at one time.
Entering the gas chamber
The fake shower heads shown at the top. Along the side walls were the vents that released the poisonous acidic gases.
Barbed wire fences
View of the roll call grounds again as the prisoners would have approached them.
Me standing at the gate entrance leaving the camp
At our train station stop. We felt that it had that feel of boarding the trains that would take the prisoners to the concentration camp.
After a most thoughtful, reflective, and down-right depressing trip to the concentration camp we ran into another Army group that was here on training and taking President's Day Weekend to explore Bavaria. There was a very fast talking woman from California and her friend. Then when we got on the train to head back to Ansbach, we struck up a conversation with a group of 15 or so Army soldiers who were coming back from the beer house. They were super loud and obnoxious They were from Nebraska and they were Bears fans... except one who clearly was in the right state of mind who was a Packer fan. We went back and forth in silly bashing of one another's team. They also got a kick out of our names (Casey and Sunshine.. aka KC and the Sunshine Band). To a group of intoxicated soldiers, this is the funnest thing ever.
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