Dachau

I find it hard to sleep the night before I am to visit Dachau. My mind slips into consciousness and out. Dark dreams in shades of grey color my sleep. A deep sense of foreboding fills me as alight from the train into the bahnhof. The town is somber and filled with elderly people with kind eyes.....eyes that are filled with understanding. However, I am reluctant to make eye contact as I board the bus that will take me to KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau....the memorial site of the first and most important concentration camp of the Third Reich. An eerie silence greets me when I get off the bus. Trees line the cobblestone pathway leading to the site. As my shoes crunch on the path, I close my eyes and can hear the marching of feet....both the military precision of soldiers and the nervous shuffle of would be inmates. My heart clenches with fear. I hear raucous laughter and light hearted chatter. Confused, my eyes fly open and are greeted by a group of school children visiting on a field trip. I drink up this sight of youth and hope, who are on their way to embrace possibly the darkest part of their nation's past.....it is impossible to move forward without a deep understanding of what precedes. Lost in thought, I come upon the road that originally lead to the gates of the camp. Rail tracks are partly buried in the sand and I see the commandant's quarters at a distance. I come upon the wrought iron gate with infamous words  "Arbeit macht frei" on them. As I enter the grounds through the gates, I shiver and tears begin to flow. Mere minutes into the museum, my mind shuts down, unable to rise above the oppressive sadness that fills the air. Floor to ceiling posters detail the political climate preceding the rise of the Röhm Putsch, timelines encapsulating Hitler's regime, personal accounts of inmates who survived the camp, visual and descriptive vignettes of unspeakable horrors committed by humans on fellow humans.....my eyes read every word and yet not one registers. I walk around like a zombie with images and words swirling in my mind.....like photographs in rapid succession from a camera gone wild. I come upon a section on poetry written by inmates of the camp....words written on forbidden paper with forbidden stubs of pencils. Fresh tears flow as I read one written by an eighteen year old to his mother, who probably never got to read those words of complete despair....thank God. There are uplifting tales of brotherhood, of humanity in the face of horror. They are but a bleak streak of color on a desolate canvas of sadness. A short film concludes the tour.....more senseless words and visuals. I cannot bear to walk over to see the living quarters of the inmates (of the many rows of sheds, only one is kept intact). On the walk to the exit, I see a wrought iron sculpture showing stick human figures grotesquely caught on barbed wire. With every step taken away from the site, my heart lightens and I realize that I have not taken a single photograph for remembrance. I reach Munich and go straight to church, where prayer soothes mind, body and spirit.

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