Munich - Day 2

Our second day in Munich got off to a bit of a befuddled start. It took us while to figure out what to have for breakfast, then we didn't know what we wanted to do with the day. Eventually we decided we would go to the concentration camp at Dachau. But then we had to figure out how to buy tickets to get there. It was just outside the little zone in which we had a 3-day pass. Let's just say it was confusing. We gave up on the machine and just went and asked someone, who made it look really easy.

We hopped on one of the large suburban trains and headed out into the suburbs/countryside, past really new looking roads sort of twisting oddly through fields. They seem to not have the same rigid planning laws in Germany as they have here. A twisting new road through a field here would be sacriligious. Anyways, the train wasn't busy, and the final train station wasn't busy, however, there was one small area that was bustling. The concentration camp is a 50 minute walk from the station, so everybody just takes the city bus. There is a little bus station outside the train station, again rather muted except for the stop for the bus to the camp, which was chalk full of what seemed to be a lot of Americans. Most people just didn't pay for the bus and got on randomly, but being transport types we felt guilty, got off the bus and then went up to the front and bought tickets. The bus took us on a winding journey through the little town and then through residential areas, stopping at a rather indiscrete light concrete area. This was the path to the concentration camp.

A big visitor's center was being built at the street, but alas it was some way from completion so we hobbled into the little temporary building to rent audio guides from a very unrushed woman. Entrance to the site and the museum it contains is free, but it seemed like one of those occasions where you might get more out of it if you had someone telling you about it, hence the audio things. Anyways, it was the coldest day since the dawn of time. If I wasn't wearing gloves my hands actually hurt from the cold. So we might have rushed things a bit and not listened to all the audio stuff before we got into the museum.

The museum was in the old 'maintenance' building, which was the largest building on the site and was wear the administrative stuff was dealt with, it contained the baths, and I'm not really sure what else. But within the building, we learned all about the camp and how things there changed through the years. It was one of the original concentratino camps, opening in 1933 as basically a prison for political prisoners, with the number of prisoners increasing over the years and the range of offenses increasing. These included being the wrong religion, being homeless, not liking the government, leaving the country and then coming back again, etc. The camp was essentially built to house 6,000 prisoners, but was quickly housing 30,000. It wasn't ideal. It wasn't a death camp (there was a separate one apparently not too far away that they shipped people off to), but it was no picnic and the death rate was very high. I mean, it's not like they really gave them food or warm clothing. But even so, it was apparently still preferential to many other places where the work was much more physical.

Leaving the museum in the bitter cold, we walked around the rest of the site. Most everything had been torn down, but the foundations of the old bunks were still visible. They had since reconstruction the two closest to the maintenance facility to give us an idea of what they were like. One showed what the set-up within the bunks was like in different time periods of the camp. There were something like 36 of these bunks, laid out in a very neat symmetrical pattern around a dividing walkway. Most were housing, but some contained the buildings were medical experiments were carried out. At the far end of the site there were a number of religious memorials, and then a walk across the little stream brought us to the crematorium area, which I found quite sombering. After this we had seen all there was to see and headed back into town.

After a late-afternoon respit, we walked around the Marienplatz a bit before opting to check out a fondu restaurant. Although we then ditched the fondu idea and got pork and noodles instead. I think the waitress found us strange. Anyways, it was very, very good. We got Bavarian cream for dessert, having no idea what to expect. It was like half way between ice cream and whipped cream (and then came with whipped cream). Also very good. Being too early to call it a night, we then went to the bar in our hotel for a night-cap. It was a bit pretentious and everyone in there was much more nicely dressed than we were. Mark got a bloody mary, and the bartender was seemingly showing this new girl how to make one. She had a look of absolute disgust on her face. I had a grasshopper, which was minty, green and delicious.

So that was our second day in Munich. Tomorrow we shall quickly go through our Sunday encounters, which involved many more short activities of varying success. I've put up pictures with accompanying captions up on picasa, so feel free to ruin the surprise of what went on for the next few days by taking a peak!