I could definitely picture myself living in Munich, I think. I mean, it's easy to just see all the good things when you're traveling, easy to ignore anything bad about your vacation. But Munich is absolutely beautiful! It's a pretty small city, too: when I got in yesterday, I was prepared to hike around for at least an hour before I got to the city center and was stunned when I got there within 20 minutes! I can walk across the majority of the city, from one side to the other, in under an hour if I keep a good pace.
I'm not saying that there's nothing to see. It's got a great - and dark - history to it. The buildings are for the most part old relics from the 1800s, and they seem to go to great lengths to keep the city's historic look preserved. There's so much construction and restoration going on that at first it felt like I was walking onto a stage being created. The major shopping centers, the Platzs, are all in a row and connected by multiple forms of public transportation. There was always a crowd there, always a buzz. Tonight, when I walked down the main street again, there were signs of a festival getting set up.
The reason I think I could imagine myself living here is simple: the Englishgarten. It's an enormous, enormous park on the northeast side of the city. And it's absolutely fantastic.
Look at that! Did I leave the city? Did I drive to the country? Nope, I just walked for about 20 minutes from the main shopping district and suddenly, wham, I'm in gorgeous wilderness. They treat the park like a beach, to the point where I even saw a guy carrying around a surfboard! Everyone's sitting around in their bathing suits, jumping into the stream, playing volleyball, reading, sleeping, etc. It really was a beach, just with all the hot sand replaced with cool grass.
Not a bad idea, I have to admit.
The rest of the city is very folksy. They even have a may pole erected in the middle of one of their shopping centers. And unlike the last few cities that I've been in, Munich doesn't smell like flowers -- it smells like strawberries! They have ton and tons of fresh fruit stands. You can't go a block without seeing one. And the fruit smells so fresh!
I spent hours yesterday walking the entire city, going from one side to another. Like I said, it's not too big but it's very fun to walk through. The gardens and greenery blew me away though. One pretty funny thing that happened was that I got turned away from the US embassy. It was near the Englishgarten and I thought it would be cool to wander in, since I had plenty of time to wander. A guard came down, asked me what I wanted, and told me the only way I'd get in is by appointment. So, file that away for future reference: if I ever need to get to the embassy, apply for an appointment ASAP.
This morning, I woke up early and caught a local train to the city of Dachau, about 20 minutes north of the city. Then I walked the Path of Remembrance for about 45 minutes until I reached the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial.
I spent the better part of the day wandering through this first concentration camp, the one that served as a model for all other camps, the one where the SS were specially trained, engrained with the "Dachau Spirit," before getting sent out on future assignments and to guard other concentration camps.
It was really hard to walk around. The path I walked was the same that many prisoners were forced to march from the train station to their prison. The gates were inscribed with the same, too-familiar horrific saying.
There is no entrance fee but I paid to get an audio guide that provided me with tons of background information and additions to the standing information posts. They had dedicated the memorial sometime in the '60s and had changed the entrance to it's original entrance in 2004. All but two of the barracks where prisoners slept had been destroyed but for their foundations; those remaining two had been restored to their original structures.
It's really hard to actually picture what life was like, given only these empty wooden boards. The huge plaza where they underwent daily roll calls seems to be too large, but with some 20-30,000 it would have been far too small. Everything felt like I was viewing it through a tunnel and very far away. Everything felt too far away to really contemplate, but I think I couldn't handle this history if it were too close.
They had a museum in addition to the standing compound. In the middle of it was a theater playing a film that was just dozens of clips from the war sewn together with an English voice occasionally coming over to narrate. There was no background music, no other sound but for the one voice. The film was physically jarring to watch and when they turned the lights on at the end, I almost jumped out of my chair.
When I had walked the path on the way into the memorial, I was enjoying the walk. It's very green, very cool, and passes through some quaint neighborhoods through the norther part of the city. As I walked back towards the train station afterwards, I had the residual feeling of the compound with me and I could imagine thousands upon thousands of strained, starved bodies walking the same trail, heeled by heartless guards, not knowing where they were going but not particular hopeful about the destination whatever it might be. I felt like if I turned by head fast enough I would actually be able to see them, these dehumanized souls, with their enfeebled shoulders hunched over, eyes staring wretchedly forward... The pleasant walk was now menacingly haunted. Those quaint houses that I had passed earlier now seemed unbearable oblivious to the compound site located only 3km from the train station.
I remember watching "Band of Brothers," and one of the most hard-hitting scenes in that was when the village people were forced by the soldiers to clean up in a concentration camp. I couldn't understand why an entire town would just let something like Dachau happen so very close to where they lived, ate, slept. Now, having been there, I'm nowhere near closer to understanding. If anything, it seems ever more bizarre, unnatural, and inexplicable to me. If the prisoners had to march along this path, they marched right from the very heart of town -- there's no way that their plight could have gone unseen, march after march, shipment after shipment. How can an entire town willfully ignore or justify the violence and maltreatment and sheer evil when it is so blatantly obvious? I'm unable to answer that question, and it makes me afraid of the possibility that perhaps my town, my people, perhaps I myself am guilty of the same thing. Maybe not in the same extreme, but what if there is some ongoing violence, ongoing injustice, happening before me that I justify easy or easily ignore?
What would I do in the same situation? It's a question that has been in the back of my mind ever since I left the compound. I would like to think that I would be horrified enough to shout out, to point and yell and call for help. During the tour, one plaque pointed out that many in the camp were forced to labor in the city itself, widening and fixing roads, and that the townspeople couldn't ignore the harsh conditions under which they worked. But, one plaque chipped in helpfully, not all the townspeople were cruel. Some gave the prisoners a piece of bread, some a sympathetic smile --
It turned my stomach. Here you see people slavishly, mercilessly worked, their bodies inwardly collapsing, and your only response is a sympathetic smile?! I would like to think that my response would be horrified outrage and immediate action, not a sympathetic smile n
The visit totally exhausted me and when I got back to Munich, I collapsed in my hostel, taking a long afternoon nap. When I woke up, I wandered around the city again, returning to the present, grounding myself. The girl who picked my up from the airport in Berlin, Vanessa, made a point to me that I'd never considered before when she told me that, during her trips through Europe, she and her companions were repeatedly warned not to speak in German if they could help it, being told that many in Europe still viewed even the current generation as being just as guilty of the Holocaust. And I'm sad to confess that, as I walked around Munich today, most of my thoughts were still on how so many people could allow the concentration camps to happen. It made a city that I had joyfully walked around in just the day before seem dark, suspicious, less friendly.
It's been a few hours now and I'm getting back to feeling less ominous than I was. I'm still kind of down in a way, a moroseness that lingers long after its cause is gone. I think I'll go to sleep early, or at least settle in with a good book. I already treated myself to some ice cream and I'm extremely tempted to go and get some more. Their ice cream here tastes like fresh, fresh fruit. It's like a bit of sunshine after so many clouds.
Location:Munich, Bavaria, Germany
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