A Cold Day in Deutschland (vol. II)

We left Nurnberg and headed south for Munchen. Almost immediatly upon leaving the city we encountered some of the most magnificent landscape we had ever seen. The world looked like it had been painted over with frosted sugar. The trees were glazed in a shimmering white -- everywhere.

Just outside of Munchen lies a small town by the name Dachau. It is sad that this is a town who's name is probably familiar to us all. It had existed for centuries. First, as a home outside of Munich for Bavarian princes. Then as a market town of its own. Yet now we know it only for the concentration camp.


From the car park, there is a long-ish walk to the camp. It was a lonely, cold day. The trees all glazed in the crystal white of the ice. Each step toward the camp increased in use a strange mix of anticipation and dread.

Our first glimpse of the camp, through the trees, set the surreal tone of the entire experience.
Everywhere we looked there was the institutional inhumanity of the camp surrounded by the enameled white and green of the landscape.

We were shortly greeted by the now infamous KZ-Dachau gate and the signature phrase "Work makes you free".

The gate opens upon a large open area where the roll call would have been taken. As Kim and I stood there, attempting to keep warm in the stark cold, we imagined what it would have been like to stand here in the winter, dressed in only rags, and sick or malnourished for an hour or more in the dark, or the snow or the rain.

In the background, you can see what is left of the barracks -- only two are still standing.

Behind this picture there stands the "bunker". This was the area where the important prisoners were kept safely and where other prisoners were brought to be tortured.

The area covered by the camp was vast. But it was important to remember that what remains is only 1/3 of the size of the original camp. As we walked through, we came upon the most sinister of buildings. The one that contained the gas chamber and ovens.
The view from inside the showers.
an oven

and a memorial...