Concentration Camp at Dachau

16 April 2012

The day started wet and dreary--which I suppose was fitting given that we were going to be visiting Dachau, Germany. Dachau was the site of the first concentration camp in Germany and was, in fact, the model for all those that followed.

Before I write about the experience, I want to share a little disclaimer. In this post, I'm writing about my feelings and reactions to Dachau. Some of these feelings I'm still trying to figure out how to articulate. So if I don't explain myself well, it's because it's not easy to put into words my reaction to Dachau.

As a kid (and later teenager), I read a lot of Holocaust literature from nonfiction by Eli Wiesel and Anne Frank as well as historical fiction like Briar Rose and The True Story of Hansel and Gretel. So visiting the site where it all began interested me.

The experience was even more disturbing and upsetting that I had imagined it would be. When you read literature about the Holocaust, you can imagine the suffering of the characters, and you feel for them. However, it's hard to really imagine what such a setting is like because it is so far outside of any reality that you have ever known. It's hard to imagine that a place--such as a concentration camp--was really real and that such a thing as the Holocaust happened.

One of the first things that I noticed--or rather that unnerved me--was the city of Dachau itself. I know that the city of Dachau was there before the concentration camp, but it seems so unnatural for this small suburban town to be located right next to the concentration camp. It seems weird to see people living their daily lives so near a place full of death.

I had always imagined that concentration camps were out in the middle of nowhere. It gave me the illusion that people didn't really know what was happening and that's why they didn't protest. However, at Dachau, there is no way that people didn't know what was happening in the camp.

As I mentioned before, the concentration camp at Dachau was the first of its kind and the model for the rest of the concentration camps that were created later. Surprisingly, it was opened shortly after Hitler came to power--only 51 days into his rule. Originally, the concentration camp held primarily political prisoners--basically anyone who opposed Hitler. It's estimated that in it's 12 year history, Dachau saw over 200,000 prisoners.

As we entered Dachau, I was surprised to see a large group of German teenagers near the entrance. However, I learned later that once they hit a certain age German students visit concentration camps every other year as part of their education about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, I'm not entirely sure how effective I think such a measure is. I wonder if all those visits in a sense desensitizes kids to the real horror of these places.

While the camp was in operation from 1933 to 1945, as prisoners entered the concentration camp, they passed by the following words "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Sets You Free."

In addition to political prisoners, other groups of people were also sent to the concentration camp--including groups that were seen as racial inferior (Jewish people and Gypsies), people who didn't fit in with the Nazi idea of the master race (Jehovah's Witness and homosexuals), and people who opposed the Nazis (clergy, Communists, and International Brigade members) Depending on their prisoner classification, prisoners had different emblems and received different treatment from guards. For example, a prisoner who was Jewish received worse treatment than a treatment who was a Communist.

Dachau was also used for medical experimentation purposes. The prisoners were used in these experiments to discover the effects of high altitude and hypothermia such as pilots might experience in flight. Unfortunately, much of what doctors today know about the effects of high altitude and hypothermia came from these experiments. In addition to these experiments, scientists used the prisoners for experiments on malaria, tuberculosis, and sepsis by deliberating infecting them with these diseases.

The last part of our visit of the camp was the crematorium--which was indescribable. The air inside this building is oppressive--weighed down by years of terrible things happening there. I felt like I could hardly breathe.

Within the walls of Dachau, there are various religious memorials--including Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Russian Orthodox memorials or chapels. This Jewish memorial says "DO NOT FORGET."














This is a statue erected near the crematorium--referred to as the statue of the unknown prisoner. At the base of the statue, it says, "Den Toten zur Ehr. Den Lebenden zur Mahnung" or "To honor the dead and admonish/warn the living."

Dachau was liberated by American soldiers in April of 1945.

So long, farewell, auf weidershen, adieu..." to Vienna

15 April 2012

"So long, farewell, auf weidershen, adieu..."

This morning as we were leaving the hostel to make our way to the train station, we started to sing this song from "The Sound of Music." I'm not sure if the passersby really appreciated it--though frankly-speaking I'm not sure how popular the musical is outside of the US.

Our train to get to Munich was a little bit complicated. We didn't really want to spend 80 euros on a ticket directly to Munich so a worker at the hostel gave us some advice for how to get from Vienna to Munich cheaper.

So we ended up taking the train from Vienna to Salzburg. Ideally, we would have hung out in Salzburg for a couple hours before catching the next train from Salzburg to Munich. However, it was pretty much pouring so it didn't seem worth it.

Salzburg looked absolutely beautiful. Some day I'd like to return there and enjoy it on a sunny day!

Once we arrived in Munich, it was still raining so we decided to eat something and hope that the rain stopped while we were eating. We ended up trying currywurst. It wasn't bad--though I wasn't a huge fan of it. I definitely like the bratwurst that we had in Prague more.

Since it was still raining, after lunch, we had a lazy day of relaxing. Sometimes when I travel, I forget that it's SUPPOSED to be a vacation, and I do get to rest sometimes. So today was a good day to recuperate a little and get ready for the next experience--Dachau.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Vienna, Austria

14 April 2012

After our experience in the Hofburg Palace, we decided not to actually go inside the Schonbrunn Palace. It was the summer palace for the Hapsburgs. It's pretty from the outside, and there is plenty to do on the grounds!

We ended up walking around the gardens for a while. I really enjoyed it and the weather. It was a little grey and a little chilly (but not too chilly). It reminded me of the way that mornings like that smell like in spring.

For lunch, we also sampled some more apple strudel--just for comparison purposes, you know. This time it was served hot--which made it taste divine! The only thing that could have made it better was vanilla ice cream...






After, we ended up going back to the Schonbrunn Palace in order to go to the zoo. It's officially called the Tiergarten Schonbrunn, and it's actually the world's oldest zoo. It was founded as a royal menagerie in 1752.

It was a blast! It was fun to see something that wasn't a museum. Due to the design of the zoo, we were able to see the animals up close and experience the zoo in a different way.







The zoo has an Amazonian Rainforest--similar to the one at the Omaha Zoo--but here there are interactive parts. At one point, you actually walk through the part of the exhibit with bats! It was terrifying! I fully expected the bats to be behind glass or a mesh net, but they were just flying around their cave. I have to confess that I was almost too scared to walk through!

We also got the chance to see pandas! Apparently, this zoo is one of only 5 zoos in Europe that has giant pandas. One of the others is the Madrid Zoo--which I actually visited two years ago!

After the zoo, we once again made our way back to the city center to go to the opera. It was really neat, and very different from the ballet from the night before. It was easier for me to pay attention because there was a storyline to follow--though I did have to figure out how best to divide my time between looking down at the subtitles and watching the show!

The Infuriating Hapsburgs. Vienna, Austria

13 April 2012

Today's adventures started with a trip to the center of the city to check out the Hofburg Palace--home to the Habsburgs (Hapsburgs in English) for over six centuries.

However, in order to start the morning the best way possible, we bought some apfelstrudel--apple strudel! It was a delicious (and nutritious (: ) breakfast--though maybe not quite as good as a good piece of apple pie topped with vanilla ice cream!


The visit to the Hofburg Palace turned out to be more frustrating than enjoyable. The first part of the museum (i.e. the ENTIRE first floor) is the Hapsburg Silver Collection. Generations upon generations worth of silverware and plates and gold covered candlesticks. The sheer volume as well as the expense I found to be extremely off putting. I could imagine that there were times in Austria's history in which there were people starving in the streets while the Hapsburgs were eating off of their golden plates.

After viewing the Silver Collection, we went upstairs to see the Sisi Museum and Royal Apartments. I didn't know anything about the Empress Elisabeth (Sisi) before visiting the museum. She grew up in the country--enjoying the freedom that such a live can give. She married Franz Joseph of Austria and had four children. Living at court was difficult for her because she missed the freedom of the country and didn't like being the center of attention. Court life became unbearable for her after her daughter died and her son committed suicide. She was assassinated by an anarchist when she was just 44.

In the Royal Apartments, we got a glimpse of her daily life in the palace. Sisi had incredibly long hair that she had styled every day--taking 2 to 3 hours out of her day! It was during this time that she studied world languages like Hungarian and ancient and modern Greek. She was also extremely conscious of her figure. She had a room where she did exercise. She had a pull-up bar, rings, weights, and other apparatuses.




After exploring the Hofburg Palace, we wandered around the city--passing by the Austrian Parliament. We also saw a little fair going on nearby. We couldn't tell exactly what it was for, but it seemed to be celebrating Austria's green movement efforts.

Soon, we had to stop for lunch, and we had wiener schnitzel--fried veal. It was delicious, and the price we paid wasn't that bad.









After lunch, we continued to wander around the city and stumbled upon this clock. It looked really neat and we thought that it would do something special--like the clock in Prague. Since we were there just a few minutes to 4:00, we decided to wait and check it out. Four o'clock came and went and the only thing that happened as that the figures moved a couple inches across the clock.








Even though we wasted our time in waiting, we did make friends with another tourist--a Colombian. Together we made our way to the Hundertwasserhaus. Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment complex constructed in the expressionist style of Hundertwasser. It's really beautiful in a funky way. I think it would be neat to live there!

After seeing Hundertwasserhaus, we made our way to the Opera House! Vienna is well-known for opera and classical music, and it can be extremely cheap to enjoy these things. We went to the Opera House one and a half hours before the show to get standing room tickets--which are only 4 euros!

We saw a really beautiful ballet. All of the dancers were very talented, and it was truly enjoyable to watch--well worth 4 euros!

Vienna, Austria

12 April 2012




This morning we caught an early train from Prague to Vienna. Our first order of business (after wandering around looking for the hostel in the rain) was to get some lunch! We went to a nearby restaurant where I had a delicious goulash!

After lunch, we wandered around the city--exploring the old part of the city and eventually ending up in the market after a conversation with a incredibly nice Austrian lady. We walked into a store so that one of the girls could buy something and struck up a conversation with the owner of the shop. She gave us great advice of things that she recommended that we see and do--not just the main tourist gigs!



The Naschmarkt (from the German for "to nibble") is Vienna's largest open air market. We stopped at the market to pick up some fresh fruit and vegetables to make a salad for dinner. It was really neat to see the market, but it was also a little depressing. I've gotten accustomed to getting amazing fresh fruit and vegetables in Spain for really cheap price. At Naschmarkt, some of the fruits were almost double the price I would pay in Alicante--probably since most of the fruits and vegetables imported to other countries in Europe actually come from Spain.



Later, we went to Stephansdom--Vienna's main cathedral. It's certainly an impressive site with it's roof! The roof is tiled with different colored tiles and designs--much like the cathedrals we saw in Wroclaw, Poland.

Czech-ing out Prague Castle

11 April 2012

We spent the morning exploring the Jewish Quarter of Prague. We bought a ticket that enabled us to visit most of the synagogues in this part of the city. A few of the synagogues had been converted into museums which detailed the history of the Jewish is this part of the world.

The Pinkas Synagogue has become a Holocaust memorial. Inside, the names--as well as the date of birth and last known sighting date--of Czech Jews who were killed by the Nazis are written on the walls. There are over 80,000 names written on the walls! It's an eerie experience seeing all those names of all those people killed in Prague and the surrounding areas. Even more disturbing are the names of the children. You read their names and their birthday dates, and you realize that the child only lived to be 6 years old.

Upstairs, there is a small museum filled with artwork made by children in Terezín--a transition camp. A teacher, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, used art as a form of therapy to help children deal with the atrocities they were seeing on a daily basis. In some of the pictures, children drew their old homes, some drew their hope of their return to their homes, and others drew images of daily life at the camp. Before she was deported, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis managed to collect over 4,500 drawings the children made and store them in a secret place  in the camp. Over 8,000 children were sent to Terezín--and later Auschwitz--with only 242 children surviving. After the war, the drawings that Friedl hid were found and are now on display at Pinkas Synagogue and at the museum in Terezín.



After lunch, we went on a tour of Prague Castle. It is considered the largest castle in the world--according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

It has an incredible view of the rest of the city of Prague. You can see Charles Bridge, the Powder Gate, the National Theater, and many other important sites from this viewpoint.  

We explored St. Vitus Cathedral. Work on the cathedral began in the 11th century, and continued in some parts until the 20th century. On the front of the cathedral, there is evidence of this period of construction in the form of an engraving of two modern architects on the front of the cathedral.

Inside, the cathedral has some amazing stained and painted glass. There is also a panel of glass painted by Mucha that is truly spectacular!

Later, we saw the changing of the guard. Like most castle/palace guards, they are supposed to remain serious and straight-faced throughout their shift. However, the guards at this gate got the giggles during the changing of the guard. I'm not exactly sure what happened to make them laugh, but they were desperately trying (and failing) to hold in their laughter.

By the end of the tour, we ended up at one of the highest points in the area--with a beautiful view into the old part of the city.

Czech out this city! Prague, Czech Republic

10 April 2012

In the interest of actually catching up on my blog, I'm going to mostly post some pictures of my travel adventures, and someday I'll write more about them.

To start our first full day in Prague, we decided to take a guided tour of the city--in order to see some of the sights and learn a little of the history of the city.


Our tour began in the Old Town Square. There, you can see the Church of Our Lady before Týn. This church is well-known for its uneven towers--called the Adam and Eve Towers. Nearby is the Astronomical Clock. It was commissioned to be one of the most impressive clocks in its day--and it still is! The clock has figures representing the virtues of humanity and the disgraces of humanity (greed, vanity, death , hedonism). On the hour, the figure of Death rings a bell and nods--signaling that it's time for death. All the other figures shake their heads in denial. Then, a trumpeter plays to signal that the clock is finished.


There are many legends surrounding the clock. Even though it isn't true, it's said that the king that commissioned the clock blinded the clock-maker in order to ensure that the clock-maker would not make another clock for someone else. 









Next, we walked around the Jewish Quarter of the city. There, we saw the Spanish Synagogue--which uses an Islamic influenced style of architecture. I'll write more about the Jewish Quarter tomorrow--since we plan on exploring it further tomorrow. 









Our tour ended near Charles Bridge--named after one of the Czech Republic's best loved Czechs. As my guidebook put it, most of the cool things in Prague were built by King Charles IV.

Later, we wandered around Prague--checking out the Powder Gate. It was once a gate used to mark the starting point for coronation processions. However, later, it was converted into a storage center for gunpowder.

For dinner, we went to a neat Czech restaurant--where I got to have some amazing comfort food! I had a meatloaf and bread dumplings. At the end of a long day, it was just great to have some warm food!