Dachau, Munich, Flossenburg, & Weiden

Hey...I cannot believe I've already spent my last weekend here in Germany! This weekend was very good...but a little depressing, as you can imagine after visiting 2 concentration camps in 2 days! On Saturday we actually worked like I already mentioned, and Sunday we went on a trip with the military rec department to Munich and the infamous Dachau concentration camp from WWII. The trips are unbelievably cheap and so convenient...the bus driver picks us up and drops us off right at our hotel door! A group of about 10 of us went together and the rest of the bus was full. We first went to Dachau which is about 30 minutes outside of Munich. We walked through the gate the prisoners walked through, which states in German, "Work brings freedom"...but the reality was that death was the only way to freedom, since over 30,000 people lost their lives in Dachau during the Nazi era. There is a huge museum there which was very informative and full of pictures and documents. We walked through the entire camp which is very large, and through all the cells, barracks, and even into the gas chambers and crematoriums. I really just felt sick imagining all the corpses that once piled up where I was standing. And to walk through the degrading undressing/cleansing rooms with hooks on the ceiling to hang people was not so pleasant. The whole area was very very calm and quite, but very creepy too. The conditions must have been horrendous. We walked through the big open area where roll call was taken and so many collapsed each morning and evening. On a lighter note, Munich was a blast. We went to the famous Haufbrahaus...Munich's most well-known beer hall. It was sooooo fun! The staff all dress up in traditional German attire, and a lot of the customers did too. There was a live band playing in full costume too and the beer mugs were enormous! I think they are 1 liter mugs haha. This is the same place Hugh Hefner took his girlfriends for his 80th birthday haha. And now I can see why =) After awhile we walked to the main square and stumbled upon a mass in one of the cathedrals. The choir was amazing and the people were all dressed in fur coats and hats. Then we went to another little German pub for some warm drinks, and then headed to the famous Glockenspiel. Munich was really fun and I thought it was funny because the store windows had manequins advertising the traditional German clothing. Monday I went along with some friends who have a car here to Flossenburg, a smaller concentration camp about an hour from here. Over 30,000 people also died here, although it was very small and located in the center of town. We walked through the valley of death where most of them were shot or died of other means of torture. A ramp still stands where they used to run wagons full of corpses from the top down to the crematorium, which also still stands. Very sickening...we also walked to the shooting range and buildings where medical experiments were conducted on innocent prisoners and hangings were done. After that I was ready to be done with concentration camps for awhile! We then drove to a university down called Weiden for some good walking around/shops. Then we headed to Vilseck for some good Italian food. Funny note about Vilseck...the railroad arms that come down for trains are still hand-cranked by a little man that runs out each time a train comes, and then he cranks them back up when the train is gone =) I'll write more later, but that's all for now. Love, Kelly