I am still catching up on sleep, and mostly running on adrenaline and caffeine at work. My masters classes are also winding down so I have been running to catch up in time for finals next week too!

We landed back in the USA on Monday afternoon, April 28, which feels like AGES ago. I enjoyed a spacious seat on the second floor of the Boeing 747. Air France hooked us up with champagne and surprisingly good snacks. Of course I enjoyed a baguette and cheese with my wine for one last time! My bed, my family, the dog, DD ice coffee, the shower, my morning commute, chicken for dinner…it is all the same again and yet nothing has felt as monotonous or as dull as it had seemed before I embarked on this trip. I know that I needed a break from the norm, but I was surprised at how happy I was to be back into it! I thought I would have a hard time getting back to my regular routine, and although a large part of me wanted to keep traveling on into the “new”, I was relieved to come back to the “usual”. It was…comforting, and I even felt refreshed despite my physical fatigue. I feel revived emotionally and mentally. I hope this new outlook is sustainable! I do feel strongly that it is. It is as if I have left behind some baggage. And yet, all of my bags came home with me.

*written Friday April 25 on our LAST bus ride. Leaving Berlin on our way back to Munich.

Berlin was a beautiful city, although our hostel did little to comfort us. Let’s just say it was a “youth” hostel and for us adults, that meant 13 year-olds karaoke-ing “99 Red Balloons” all night long. And yet I still found it easy to sleep - every day has been so packed that I can find a way to fall asleep even in “Racer Car” wooden beds! I learned a ton today on the tour, given to us by a local PHD student who really knew his stuff. I was particularly interested in Hitler’s vision of Germania and to see the city’s tribute to the Holocaust. Little remains of Hitler’s attempt to build an empire in the city. We saw only two buildings standing from his original plans, and they were unmarked or abandoned. It is clear that the Germans want to move on from their ugly past and rebuild. And when it came to the rebuilding, the new architecture put in place is amazing - attractive and innovative all at once. We spent the afternoon after the tour resting in the open air under a glass dome that spiraled and coiled above our heads.

We began our tour at Starbucks, which made me do the “happy dance” because the hostel’s “coffee” didn’t exactly do the job on my post-Racer Car bed crankiness. I got a view across the plaza of the balcony where Michael Jackson dangled his child before we embarked on our walk through the city. We saw what remains of the Berlin Wall and photos of the Gastapo jail cells. It is incredible to think that two vastly different societies lived in one nation divided by a cement wall.

Our guide spoke about how each person in the regime played a specific role that they could focus on, and therefore they could feel detached from the larger, more heinous plan that was set in motion. For example, the man in charge of switching the train tracks did not feel responsible for the fact that the trains were switched to take prisoners to death camps. He simply focused on his task.

It was fascinating to learn about T4, the offices where the practice of eugenics was first experimented with in the 1930s, with participation from American scientists and doctors. We were only able to note the approximate street location of where the groundwork of genocide was laid.

I was most intrigued, however, by our visit to Hitler’s bunker - or rather, the sign that told us we were close to where it used to be. Again, there is no ability to tag or commemorate the life of Hitler in Germany, and justifiably so. Only a subtle trail of the historical context of his life remains there. Nonetheless, his suicide as the Russians approached, the burning, burial, movement, exhumation, re-burning and scattering of his ashes in an unmarked spot of a river makes for interesting history, of which we only got a taste on the tour.

We ended our tour at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, an outdoor monument, composed of 2,711 rectangular graffiti-proof stones that stand in rows and columns as a dedication to the Jewish population who suffered and died. Much debate lies in the artist Peter Eisenman’s actual intentions (why 2,711 stones? what is the intended experience for the viewer?), and in his decision to commemorate only the Jews, when so many other European nation’s peoples were imprisoned and murdered. As I walked through it, I became disoriented, at times able to see the horizon, and then losing sight of any way out from under the shadow of the looming blocks. And when I stopped to look around me for the people I knew, they disappeared and reappeared so rapidly, that I felt as if their presence were an illusion. I was alone and lost unless I just kept moving forward blindly and the blocks finally subsided. And I was free in the sun again. I looked around to see who else made it out.

Friday April 18*

It’s about 6:45 pm in the Czech Republic now, and we are still on the bus. I’m enjoying a piece of Ritter chocolate and two seats to myself. We left Munich at about 8:30am and stopped for a tour of Von Ludwig’s castle, Schloss Neuschwanstein,the inspiration for the Disney Castle. We hiked uphill through plush green moss and clear mountain springs to behold the mad king’s castle perched among the mountains. Once inside, we visited the king’s chambers, dressing room, and music hall. Von Ludwig only spent 172 nights in his decadent home, about half a year, and left the castle incomplete. Architect Christian Jank had designed a third floor of quarters and a garden but when Ludwig died suddenly, all construction ceased and the castle was turned into a museum only six weeks later. Tours have been conducted ever since - 120 years straight. Von Ludwig’s death remains a mystery. He was declared “mad” by the government, dethroned, and sent away, and just one day later, was found dead, drowned, along with his doctor. It had never been determined whether his death was murder, suicide, or accidental. I think it’s worth reading up on. Von Ludwig’s rooms were ornately decorated including oversized gold chandeliers embedded with colored glass gems, porcelain swans to symbolize loyalty, and large paintings dedicated to his favorite operas. Sadly, due to his untimely death, he never entertained in his home. The decadent castle was quite a contrast to the desolation at Dachau we saw just 24 hours earlier.

*I hand wrote and/or typed each reflection on the date and time included with the post. 

Written Friday April 18, 8:00 am* Just left Munich Hostel, on a bus to Prague.

Dachau. What are the words to describe how I felt being there? First impressions of my first visit to a concentration camp…the desolation despite the tour groups shuffling about was a mixture of eeriness and loneliness. The Nazis burned all of the barracks down during the liberation, so very little breaks the monotonous horizon when I enter. I could stop and scan the vast campus and see nothing of interest within its barbed borders for acres. All is grey, dull, and dead, and only when the cold air stings my cheeks am I awakened to shuffle over stone to the museum. I looked down at my feet and wondered who else took these same steps into the main building when they first arrived here…I wanted to know who each and every one of the prisoners were. I felt obligated to know each person’s story not just of who they were in the camp, but who they were before the camp - on their way into the main building, just as I was.

In the main building, which is now the museum, the prisoners were ordered to strip down, their hair was shaven, their personal property confiscated, and their identities written down as data. The display cases held photographs and passports taken from prisoners. I felt the urge to touch and hold each one and look at every face, say each name in my head. And these were only a handful of the 60,000+ who were imprisoned here. Videos played and I watched a survivor recount getting his head shaved. He went into great detail about the process which would normally be ignored in conversation as superfluous or uninteresting, but I hovered on every detail…I felt obligated to hear his story. And of course every detail does matter…for some, the hair cut may have been the first time they were injured in custody, as many bled from the haphazard shave.I read through the displays about the conditions leading up to the creation of the camp in 1933…the effects of World War I on the economy, the Treaty of Versailles blame on Germany, the rise of the Socialist Party enabled by their promise of the return of German pride…in every paragraph I searched for the answer to “why?” How could this have happened? How could a place like this be built? I was particularly interested in the role of the media - where were the newspapers? What did the surrounding town know? Why was this accepted, and for so long? 

The truth was not reported. It is mesmerizing the depth and breadth of the Nazi regime into every aspect of society. Propaganda depicted the death camp in a far more humane light - these people were political prisoners who were being “re-educated” and would re-enter society as willing workers for the Party. Red Cross investigations interviewed guards dressed as prisoners, and corpses were hidden in medic vans. The deception was meticulously calculated and amazingly controlled to allow the Nazi crimes to continue unchallenged for so long.

I moved further into the museum where the prisoners “showered” or were basically hosed down en masse. The brock (sp?) and steel whip was displayed in the center. Here, prisoners were whipped for as minor an infraction as missing a button, and were forced to call out each flog. If they passed out, they had to start over. Hooks high above me strung up  people by their wrists. In the next room, medical “examinations” were conducted. Photos of a man undergoing experiments about the effects of air pressure were displayed, and I read about the “doctor” on site. What kind of person permits himself to treat another human being in such a way, especially when it is his job to care for them? I wondered how that doctor could look that man in the eye during the torturous experiments.

The names and faces of the guards and commandants of the camp were displayed. I thought, My God, these people will always be remembered like this…as monsters…as murderers…as scum. And yet…the scariest part of it all is the fact that they were people too. Each guard was someone’s son, had children that they cared for, believed in a God…They each had their own stories too. This is what frightens me most of all - the capability that is in each one of us to be evil. And given the right conditions, as they were in place from 1933-1945, that ability can become a reality.The one barrack that stood was a reconstruction - all of the others had been destroyed by the Nazis during the liberation.

The conditions depicted were unimaginable…People slept in wooden shelves, basically, and had no possessions of their own, and no identity besides a number and a symbol on their outfits. I wondered what kind of companionship and comfort they found in each other, these strangers thrown together and suffering together, literally piled on top of each other.

The gas chamber was very difficult. I felt a deep sadness in there, like a wailing was coming from the walls. It was dark and small and my eyes fell to the floor where so many had fallen. I touched the walls. I shivered at the peep hole. And I left - I couldn’t stay in there very long - only to enter the crematorium. The kilns looked like pizza ovens! This was a factory of death.  I left quickly, lingering only in the room where the liberators found corpses piled to the ceiling.  

Pebbles and dust crunched beneath my feet as I closed the steel gate into Dachau behind me. Not everyone left this place breathing the cold crisp fresh air as I did. But I too, left the camp as a different person from when I entered.

We are stepping off the bus now, to tour Von Ludwig’s Castle. Today should be a lighter day. I know there are more stops like Dachau on our journey to come, but the ability to live life and enjoy it is still a reality, thankfully, and so we must continue to celebrate living now as much as we must remember life lost.

*I hand wrote and/or typed each reflection on the date and time included with the post.