Kim's profileKim, Bina & Jo's Europea...PhotosBlogListsMore  |  Tools Help |
Dachau Concentration CampOn The Amazing Race, the teams once made their way through the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration/Extermination Camp in Poland, pausing for a moment’s silence in memoriam of those who suffered during the Nazi regime. This brought me to recollect my own visit to Dachau Concentration Camp, near Munich, Germany.
We visited Dachau on the morning that we left Munich... 22 December 2006.
It was a cold, frosty Winter's morning in Germany and each of us in the tour group were fully aware of the connotations of visiting such a historic site, especially one with such a dark and tragic history. Even as we approached the site, the whole bus was silent... I think we were all preparing ourselves for the magnitude of what we were about to experience...
As we walked up the path leading to the site, we were enveloped by an eerie silence, which made us even more aware of the chill of the morning... the cold breezes cut to the bone and the frosty air saturated our lungs with every breath...
Walking through the gates almost put you in the Jewish prisoners’ shoes... I could almost feel my freedom drifting away, a feeling that frightens me and makes me feel so privileged for living in an era and a society in which there is no genocide and I have a right to freedom. Walking through those gates, I could almost imagine what it would have been like to enter this space in another time, when there were 200,000 oppressed people packed into the open courtyard, now deserted save for the various tourists... on a winter’s morning, just as cold as the one we were experiencing, wearing nothing more than thin calico shirts and pants – I felt as though I had no right to complain about the cold...
As we walked around the grounds, we absorbed the magnitude of the empty space and noted that sounds that usually echoed through such space seemed to get lost before it reached the other side. The silence throughout the site was truly, truly eerie.
We entered one of the blocks that housed the living quarters, however, you could barely call this place somewhere to live. The wooden bunks where the prisoners slept stood three high and ten across and were barely long enough to fit a person... no doubt many prisoners slept with either their head or feet hanging off the edge. The multilingual plaques on the walls told of the conditions suffered... how the beds were to be immaculately made, cutlery cleaned to spotlessness, floors swept to pristine condition... and the consequences, should these rules not be followed.
The plaques also told of how 1,800 prisoners were made to fit into a space that only allowed for 250, for, towards the end of the war, the camps had become so crowded, prisoners had to sleep head-to-foot.
We left this block to take a walk down the poplar-lined road, down which nothing remained, save for the foundation stones of the prisoner blocks and the poplar trees themselves, which stand barren in the winter frost.
At the end of this road, there are three places of worship that were built, after the war had ended, to commemorate those that suffered under Hitler’s regime. Interestingly, the Jewish Memorial site was the last of the three to be opened in May 1967, with the Catholic Chapel and Protestant Church being opened in August 1960 and April 1967, respectively. A Russian Orthodox Chapel was also built on the site, opened in April 1995.
Near the Russian Orthodox Chapel, is the entrance to the Crematorium and the building itself, we dared not venture there, though... knowing that this was where many executions took place, none of us were compelled to enter for fear of what we may encounter and the emotional weight of the site.
Prior to leaving, we toured through the Administration block, which housed the museum. The limited amount of time we had meant that we didn’t have nearly enough time to absorb everything there was to see, however, none of us could help the feeling of immense melancholy of simply seeing what we had on that day.
Kim Photo 140 - The Lion MonumentHere is what the Lion Monument represents and why he's so sad.........
Bertel Thorvaldsen's famous carving of a dying lion (the Lion Monument, or Löwendenkmal) is found in a small park just off Lowenplatz. The carving commemorates the hundreds of Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when the mob stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris.
Kim Photo 26 - Crazy Dutch Farmer...Okay... now that some people have asked, I'm going to explain the story of the Crazy Dutch Farmer. Mainly because some people think that Endra will get jealous otherwise...
 So, Whilst on our way from Amsterdam to Germany, we visited a quaint little Dutch Cheese and Clog Factory/Farm (there were cows... it smelled... like crap - literally
 ). Farmer was nothing short of crazy... provided some laughs, but crazy, nonetheless. First thing he said when we entered the cheese-making area was, "Ladies to the front, men to the back. I don't like men, so I want them as far away as possible." He was semi-light-hearted, mind you, so don't think that he was altogether serious... we certainly didn't know whether we should take him seriously. Nevertheless, ladies ended up at the front and the men were at the back of the room. He started singling out people, asking them what their origins were. He asks Zahra (one of the girls on the tour - 'cause he never spoke to the men) where she's from. "Canada," she replies. He asks, "Can you speak French?"
"No, but I can speak a bit of Persian."
"Hmm, I can speak a lot of different languages, but Persian is not one of them." Failing that, he picks on another girl, who is obviously Asian (not me), "Where are you from?"
"China," she responds.
"Ah," he's suddenly found the language that will flavour this group of visitors, "Ni hao," he starts spouting off in Mandarin.
So, he begins to explain the process of making Farmhouse Cheese (ie, made on farms using traditional processes rather than mass produced in factories and marketed). He explains that this process takes 3 months and the next process takes 6 months, these ingredients go into the cheese at a certain stage. Each time he tells us in Chinese before translating to English for the benefit of the wider group. After he's completed his explanation, he allows us to sample his wares (and I must say, it was good cheese - unfortunately, I would never have been able to get it back into the country) before we ventured forward to the Clog Room.
Now, the "Clog Room" is just my terminology for the room in which the clogs are made. Sounds fair, right? So, it was in this room, where I was taking pictures of the clog-making machines ('cause they were kinda cool) and our dear friend, the Crazy Farmer, turns to me and says, "No, that's not a very good photo."
He takes my camera from me (which I was very reluctant to hand over, the camera being brand new and me being the paranoid single female) and hands it to one of my tour-mates. He then tells me to come around to where he was standing, takes my right arm and says, "this goes around here," placing it around his waist. Takes my left arm and wraps that around the other side.
 I'm extremely embarrased by this stage (no scoffing, it's true!). He wraps his own arms around my shoulders and instructs the girl who was holding my camera ('cause all the girls are up the front) to take the photo. Never mind that my so-called friends are doing nothing but laughing at me and force me to put this photo up for all to see. Meanwhile, back at the farm, the Farmer proceeds to explain and demonstrate how clogs are made. Made from Poplar wood, they are carved using a machine that mimics the shape of a "master copy" and hollowed out using another machine that also uses a master of the hollow shape. They are hung up to dry (you can see them on in the photo hanging from the ceiling). Once dry, they are hand painted with various patterns depending on the purpose (ie, dancing clogs, "everyday use", decorative, etc) or carved using a hot wire.
At least I managed to get some clogs back into the country. they were my speedy-exit ticket out of customs to be honest. Meant I could declare them (as they're made of wood), explain to the nice customs officials what they were and without even seeing them, he waved me through to the outside world. Yeah, man!
 Kim |
|
|
