Munich, Germany - July 24

reproduction of the entry gate

24 degrees, clear

We figured our trip to Germany would not be complete without a trip to a concentration camp memorial site. Today we visited Dachau. The was the second former concentration camp site I have visited, the first being Stutthof in Poland and Chris’s third (he visited Dachau when he backpacked a million years ago). The Dachau memorial site was infinitely more developed and

Chris with the guide...watch tower in the distance

preserved than Stutthof. Some of the ways it’s more developed are that there is a museum here to showcase maps, photographs, prisoner biographies and artefacts. A small number of barracks were rebuilt to show an example of where the prisoners lived, but

crematorium

most were not rebuilt after time had broken them. The spaces where the barracks weren’t rebuilt were left as empty spaces of land with outlines of the buildings in the ground. Dachu I learned was the first Nazi concentration camp - ultimately there were approximately 1500 camps.

bigger crematorium

for clothing

Today’s tour was a long one-about 6 hours, a 4-hour tour with an hour for travel each way – the travel consisted of both subway and bus. The guide was great, the trip overall was very worthwhile. I learned a lot about the 1500 concentration camps that existed at one point.

After the tour we were beat and hungry. A pretzel was all I was up for before heading back for a rest. We had some snacks remaining from yesterday, so it was back to the room to recharge.

monument to the unknown dead

For dinner we resorted to comfortable old Italian. Compared to German fare, not exactly diet food either, but we split the pizza and the bottle of wine, so we didn’t have to be to be rolled back to the hotel.

We haven’t noticed much smoking so far in Europe. We do find a bit of it when we are eating outside, but I guess this is where it’s allowed, and that’s where we like to eat, so we live with it.

Dachu memorial

monument to the dead