Lets get my regret out there straight away. I regret not getting a bed on the overnight to Munich from Venice. We were woken on 6 occasions, twice for passports (what happened to the Schengen Area?) and 4 times for tickets. That aside I believe I bagged about 5 separate mini sleeps before we arrived in Munich at 7am. Arriving so early we wandered the city for coffee and cakes after finding a handy bag lock-up. Then our first trip was to Dachau concentration camp. I'm not sure what I could have gained by this as with 3 years studying history, I'm not sure what there was left to learn except fresh horrors. I also have sadly become numb to the pictures of dead bodies. Even so to walk through the gates with Arbeit Mach Frei, giving the prisoners some hope is a huge cruelty in itself. This may have been a fresh wound for me about the Nazi treatment of all the prisoners, but especially the Jews. The Nazis somehow gave an air of fair play in that if you played by the harsh rules, you'd be free, when in reality they had no intention of making good on that vague promise. The second fresh wound for me was seeing the camp in such proximity to normal Germans doing normal Germany things. I'm put in mind of the saying "all it needs for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing". I think the biggest crime is that the bulk of Germany did nothing. A lot more could have been done if the propaganda had not been bought into. It made me stronger in my determination that my view on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is like the very early stages of the Nazi party.The stage where they wouldn't allow Jews to own businesses, allow bullying. Have a seperate legal system for them. These were the seeds of what grew out of control. I think that unless I shout about it where I can, make a point of not buying Israels products, then I'm doing my bit of enabling. What is also frightening is that we have not really learnt our lesson as a people. We have sat back and not bothered to understand the genocides of this world. The US cause of civil rights abuses in Chile, Nicaragua and Argentina. The Rwandan, Cambodian and Yugoslavian genocides. That was in the 70s, 80s and 90s, think of something more up to date. I think of how we demonise Islam. Openly confuse Islamic fundamentalism with Terrorism committed in the name of Islam. Questioning for a moment the right for a mosque to be built in Times Square. Nodding in agreement at the drunk so called 'common sense' jibberish of the BNP and the EDL. While these attitudes continue, and we keep letting Israel commit the acts it does, we have learnt nothing from the holocaust. That is what I took from Dachau.
Moving on from that deep paragraph as only a paragraph of Dachau could be. We next took to train to the Olympic Stadium in Munich. A bit of a personal thing for me as it was here 34 years ago which was part of my first trip abroad. I vaguely remember bits of it, but mostly I remembered the stadium that looks like a sort of tent. The walk through the park in the warm weather was relaxing. After that it was back to Munich station to catch the 15:51 to Fussen to the Hostel which was Sarah's first. Some beer and a sandwich near the river in Fussen ended the day nicely.
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Return to Munich 34 years later
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