Dachau Concentration Camp
While Mom & Dad were in town, there were interested in visiting a Concentration Camp memorial- so we decided to trek to Dachau since it was the first camp in Germany and holds a lot of rich history for Germany and WWII. Since it is a good 4+ hour drive we decided to stop just shy of Dachau and stay the night. Our last-minute plans led us to book an AirBnb in Heidenheim- a small German town I had never even heard of. I was expecting a total bust- some ugly industrial town with few dinner options and I was wrong! The AirBnb was in an adorable residential area just one mile from downtown. It was so nice and fully equipped- literally the best AirBnb I have ever stayed in! #win
We ended up walking to dinner along this cute little paved path that ran along a river teeming with momma and baby ducks, along fields of sheep and farmland interspersed with really cute houses on the water. It was so pleasant! We learned about May Poles and even stumbled upon an old water mill that was still chugging along so we got to watch it in action. So many hidden gems to this tiny, random little German town we got to stay in. We chose an authentic Italian place for dinner that did not disappoint. I really enjoyed getting to spend this time with my parents, exploring, learning new things, sharing delicious meals. Being so far away from family can be hard at times, but its unique experiences like this that help make up for it.
The next day we continued our drive to Dachau in time to make the morning English tour. I am not sure what I expected, but the grounds are actually, in an odd way, nice and peaceful. Which is difficult to reconcile with the horrors and cruelty that we know went on there. Dachau was opened in the early 1930’s as a work camp for mostly political prisoners, almost completely men. The conditions were not altogether deplorable until well into World War II when tens of thousands of prisoners were carted in yearly, packed into the bunk houses, barely fed, beaten and worked literally to death. They had a crematorium on the premises for disposing of the deceased, and even though they later built a gas chamber, we learned that it was only used once to test, and never again. They emphasized that this was not because of pity or grace, but most likely because Hitler wanted his camps on German soil to stay work camps, and reserved the extermination camps for foreign soil. Walking the grounds and touring the museum, it is so difficult to imagine what it would have been like when it was operational. But we have a duty to learn about these things. To be horrified and disgusted. To learn about how things like this came into existence, what it took to shut it down, clean it up, and how it exists now so we can REMEMBER. For this is the only way we can hope to avoid the same horrific mistakes in the future. A prayer of gratitude. A feeling of Hope. A heart of remembrance.
