Munchen.. or Munich to You

Well, despite the weather, or perhaps because of it (lots of grey skies and rain), we've had a pretty restful time here while enjoying the sights and the ambience of this city. Munich is pretty laid back with some amazing things to do and see. We visited the Pinakothek Museum (which I had never heard of) and were blown away by the art collection there. Ruebens, Van Dyck, Leonardo DaVinci, Botticelli, it's impossible to name the plethora of old masters here. It's a very impressive collection.. it took us 4 hours to make our way through this gallery and we still could not drink it all in. Many of the works here were acquired after the second world war but some of the works were plunder from occupied countries, it's fascinating. Still on the museum track, we visited the Deutsches Museum which is a technical museum with a collection of everything you can imagine from aircraft, space travel, ceramics, food technology (mostly beer making, go figure), clocks, astronomy, bridge building etc. - this museum covers an area of 55,000 square metres! Ok, so we didn't see everything but what we did see was very impressive.

The center of Munich is called Marienplatz and it's hip, contemporary shopping, beer gardens and markets set amidst cathedrals and towering architecture. This is old Europe at it's best. The cathedrals are magnificent and it's vibe is warm and inviting. Everyone loves to sit outside and smoke cigarettes (I have never seen such a huge smoking culture), quaffing beers and people watching, it's all very European darling.

One day we took a trip to Salzburg, Austria and visited the Mozart Museum and walked the charming streets and climbed to the fort in the middle of the old town where you can see for hundreds of miles, the alps standing proudly in the background. Breathtaking. The cathedrals in Salzburg are numerous and awe inspiring. It's so cool to jump the train and be in another country in 2 hours considering all the miles and miles we travelled through huge countries like Australia and India.

Another day we took the train to visit the Dauchau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, a very sobering and heart wrenching experience. Entering the gates the first thing you see is the inscription: "Arbeit macht frei" which translates to "Work Makes You Free" Etched across the roof of the main administration building are the words, "There is one road to freedom. Its milestones are: obedience, diligence, honesty, order, cleanliness, temperance, truthfulness, sacrifice and love of one's country." The guards within the camp were oblivious to the irony of these inscriptions as they worked the interns to death, literally.

This camp was highly important in the rise of the Reich in that it was the first camp opened and the model for all the others. It was opened in 1933 and during its 12-year history, Dachau had 206,206 registered arrivals and there were 31,951 certified deaths. The actual figures are unknown as records cannot be trusted for accuracy. Dachau was designed house 5,000 prisoners, but after 1942 the number of prisoners was never less than 12,000. Each block was meant to accommodate 180 men; in a report from April 26, 1945, the least crowded block contained 842 inmates. Most of the others had well over a thousand; the most crowded was Block 30, which contained 1800 people, primarily the very sick and invalids.

The bodies of those prisoners who died were brought to the crematorium to be disposed of. The area where the bodies were meant to be stored was usually full, and corpses were often stacked on the street. Because the prevailing wind was from the west, the camp was usually filled with the smell of burning corpses. In addition to the crematorium, Dachau did have a set of gas chambers. However, for reasons that have never yet been understood, these were never used in this particular camp.

Most horrific was the exhibition on medical experimentation on the prisoners which included submersing prisoners in freezing cold water to test for hypothermia, injection of air to create embolisms so they could study the effect of high altitude on pilots, malarial injections to find a cure but which weakened and sickened the subjects resulting in the deaths of many hundreds of prisoners, and other unimaginable atrocities. The agony is palpable at this place.

This memorial is done very tastefully, respectfully and with full disclosure. It is a brave and noble monument to the many thousands of victims who passed through these gates of hell. At the back of the barracks adjacent to the crematorium are chapels and monuments erected by the Jews, Catholics, Protestants and other denominations to honour those of their faith who endured the unspeakable through the years of 1933-1945. We were deeply touched and moved by this visit.

Staying with our friend Matthias has been good for us as it gives us a chance to rest and have some normalcy again. We cook our own meals, get lots of sleep and move at a leisurely pace. Last night was the highlight of our Munich experience as Matthias has a work colleague with connections to the Olympic park. Through great generosity we were given tickets to see the EAGLES! It was a sold out concert and it was an amazing show. They played all the old stuff from Desperado, Hotel California, Take it Easy and more and some new stuff from their upcoming album. The Olympic stadium rocked. This is a band that sounds exactly on stage as they do on their albums. As you walk through the Olympic Park you see huge mounds - green grassy hills dotted with trees which are actually the rubble from the bombing of WWII. It's hard to believe that so much destruction lies beneath these peaceful mounds and it seems a fitting tribute to the suffering of the past.

In two days we head to Prague and Dresden and then on to Poland where I finally will meet my relatives.