Visiting a concentration camp & feuding with German trains
18/08
Today was a pretty chill day so I’ll probably combine this day with tomorrow, seeing as I’ve actually got plans for tomorrow. To be honest I woke up today wanting to do something, but not exactly sure what. I didn’t really want to go back into Munich, especially because the weather wasn’t supposed to be all the good, so I thought I’d explore Freising a bit better instead. I slept in that morning, which was very much needed, as soon as I woke up I knew the day would be a pretty rot(ty) day.
Really the only thing I did was cook some brunch for Alex and I, then had a nice, long shower. Towards the early afternoon I felt like getting out and about for a bit, and it didn’t seem to have rained much at all so I decided to chance the weather and go for a hike. What’s great about being in a smaller town is that you can walk 20 minutes and be in beautiful gardens and forests. I decided I would do one of the walks in the tourist map I got the day before from the tourist information.
It first led me up the hill I walked yesterday when I went reading for the afternoon, so I knew where I was going for that part. I quickly found myself in unfamiliar territory though, I didn’t realise how far further that path went. At the top of the hill I found myself in a university campus, which seemed like a bit of an odd location for it. Walking through the campus the trail took me through some beautiful gardens that I had to make a detour to explore. This time in the afternoon was when I got some sun, so it was lovely to wander through there for a while.
When I continued I crossed quite a major road and followed it up a steep hill where I reached what I first thought was a community centre, but may have been some sort of nature exhibition thing? Honestly I’m not too sure what it was. But the views from there were so pretty, I was on the very outskirts of Freising, so I got to see more of the pastures and cute little German sheep. The views down the valley reminded me a lot of Ireland, especially with the sheep involved.
From there it seemed the path led me through a mini village outside the main town which was very pretty, until I reached a smaller path that led into a rich forest. It was peaceful to be in such quiet, especially after the busyness of the last couple of days. I loved walking through the trees that towered over me, it seemed like I was miles away from any civilisation, tucked away in the dampness of the trees. I was happy that this section of the walk went for the longest. And though it was nice to be alone, it was comforting to pass several people on the way, it seemed a Sunday walk was on many people’s lists of go to activities. Coming to a crossroad in the path I realised another path coming from another direction seemed to be a pilgrimage trail, with elaborate religious markers set up probably every 20m. The end of the trail was where I met it, and crossing a road was one of the pilgrimage churches. Being at a slightly higher elevation in the valley, the clouds were closer, and the church was coated in the fog and mist. It looked so atmospheric like that, it would’ve almost been a shame to have ‘perfect’ weather. It was so much more dramatic this way. I walked around the church and had a peak inside before continuing on my route.
The last third or so wasn’t that inspirational, it was clear I had seen the best bits of the trail already. The last part was through the out skirting suburbs then down along the river that runs through the town before making my way back up to the Marienplatz. The river part was cute, and I could see from the bridge that there was a railing from the river bank into the water so elderly people could enjoy the water in summer. I thought that was really sweet, if only the weather was warm enough I’m sure we would’ve joined them. The rain finally started to set in, so I picked up the pace and made it back to the apartment by just after 5pm. I think I was gone for a total of just over 3 hours, which was exactly the time I was looking to be out and about. Annoyingly I didn’t start my Strava until mid-way through, but I think I did 12-13km, which was definitely what I needed after feeling couped up in the morning.
That night I had what was leftover of the charcuterie board before going to bed at a reasonable hour (finally!)
19/08
Today I wanted to do a daytrip of some kind, as the weather was again not the most incredible in Munich, so I decided to make my way to Dachau, and hopefully do a tour at Dachau Concentration Camp. I know it might seem a bit odd to want to visit a Concentration Camp on a euro summer travel, but was a WW2 history enthusiast and just interested in general, it was always at the top of my list since I started planning for the trip.
The only problem with this plan was that you couldn’t book tickets ahead of time, and tours were limited to 30 people were tour group. And there were only 2 English tours per day, so I had to time it well. They recommended arriving there at least half an hour before the tour to get a ticket, so that’s what I planned out on google maps. I soon learned, throughout the day, I should use the DB app instead, google maps simply does not cut it for the German trains. Of all the train systems I have used in my time- including the metros in Paris, New York, Rome, Athens, Seattle and London, I can easily say German trains are the bane of my existence (and not the object of all my desires, niche reference but if you know, you know). I had planned to leave the apartment at 10am, arriving at the camp at 12:28pm, perfect timing for the tour starting at 1pm.
I would need to take a train from Freising into Munich, then one from Munich into the town of Dachau, then a bus from there to the camp. There was plenty of time between each one to find the next platform, so I was feeling ready to go. Unfortunately for me, my plans did not take into account my first train being delayed 20mins. I have no clue what goes on with the train system here, I knew from the Munich day that the S-Bahn have English translations of stops/announcements so I take the S-Bahn when I can. And I took the S1 from Freising into Munich so I thought I would be fine, before I saw stops on the screen of the train starting to get cancelled. No explanation, just a massive of list of stops with a red line through them. Then when the train driver did make an announcement it was only in German and so distorted none of the Germans on the train knew what was going on anyway. I began to feel a bit panicky. Here I was on a train to Munich not knowing if it was actually going to stop in Munich or if I would end up in the middle of nowhere. I was already irritated that with the 20 minute delay I wouldn’t make the tour in time. At this point I was considering just figuring out how to get to Munich then spending another day there, but for some reason I was so determined to not let the trains beat me. I was going to make it to Dachau, it didn’t matter if it took me 3 hours.
Luckily for me the woman sitting in front of me could see I was freaking out, so she translated the announcement for me which confirmed we would still be stopping in Munich, and even offered to help me find my next platform. Honestly what a cutie, she really talked me off the edge there. We got to Munich which was a big relief, I’d much prefer to be stuck there than at some random regional station by myself. I reset my google maps and figured out the next train I had to get one that would take me to Dachau. The only annoying thing about this one was that I wasn’t the last stop on the line, I was the second or third, which meant I had to keep count of where we were at because, wonderfully for me, this train did not announce which stop it was at, and there was no little display of the stops either. So I was completely reliant on my google maps, which I didn’t have all that much faith in.
I did make it though, and I got off at the right stop so that’s a miracle. From Dachau it was pretty easy to figure out the bus I needed. It was signposted well and left from right outside the train station and took 10 minutes or so to reach the camp itself which was little way out of town. I got to the camp at 12:58pm, just as the 1pm tour was leaving. At that point I didn’t know if there was any point staying at all if I couldn’t do a tour, but I figured out you could still do an audio guide, so I bought one of those instead. Just was I was working out where to go from the visitor entrance, I ended up right behind the guided tour that just left. I popped my audio guide and map into my bag, then managed to blend my way in behind 2 tall Russian guys, and ended up sneaking onto the tour. Eventually it was clear the guide knew I was there, but since I had been there from the second stop I think he thought I was meant to be there, no one said anything and I got away with it! The guided tour was heaps better than the audio tour too, I was so glad I snuck onto it. The guide was a WW2 historian specialising in Dachau, so he knew pretty much everything anyone could know. We walked through the main gates which were labelled with ‘Arbeit macht frei’, meaning ‘work makes one free’. Part of the cover scheme for Dachau was to label it as a ‘re-education’ camp, so that it would be more palatable to foreign eyes, easier to look away. What I found particularly interesting was that Dachau was operational before WW2 began, and held political prisoners, publishers, journalists and writers primarily, those with the most potential to be able to speak out against the Nazi Party. Throughout the War, it continued to hold ‘enemies of the state’ and wasn’t heavily involved in the Jewish Holocaust. Dachau was, instead, a labour camp, basically working the prisoners to death. There was a gas chamber on site, however it is believed it was never in active use. The ovens used to cremate the bodies were still there, completely original from the 40s, and we got to walk through the gas chambers themselves. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was different from what I was thinking it would be. I’ve only seen photos of the chambers from Auschwitz which is kind of like a long hall, but concrete. This one was connected by a hallway sort of thing, and would’ve really made the victims feel as though they would survive. The first room even had hooks and fake shelves for where you would hang your clothes and leave your shoes to ‘have a shower’ in the next room.
Another thing I didn’t know was that 6 months before the War ended, they ran out of coal at Dachau and could not keep cremating bodies in their human ovens. Instead, part of the labour was to bury fellow prisoners in mass graves surrounding the campsite and further afield closer towards Munich. I think our guide mentioned that over 200 mass gravesites have ben found since, and they find more every year. In total it’s estimated that 32 000 people died at Dachau, but those are conservative estimates considering this number is from the camp records which were unlikely to be accurate.
What I really appreciated about the tour was that it wasn’t for shock value, or designed to be too confronting. Though nothing was comfortable about the experience, or should have been, the aim behind the tour was to study this history and see how it was being repeated in the present, how we can learn from it, and how to keep each other ‘truly human’. It was this point that I appreciated the most. Our guide’s theory was that War will only take place if we disassociate from the people we are fighting against and see them only as targets, not humans. If we focus on human complexity, emotion, value, humanity in general, he believes it will not be possible for a War of this scale to occur again. I loved that the tour was driven by hope and optimism in how far humanity has come since, and though antisemitism is not exactly on the decline, it was reassuring to see a WW2 historian convinced that conflict of that scale would not be possible again.
The only bit that did get a bit uncomfy was when we were talking about this ‘superior race’ Hitler wanted to create, and how unrealistic it would have been to actually succeed, he would have had to slaughter most of Germany regardless of religion. Our guide then made the most random comment about how “no one in this group would likely survive, expect this young lady here” and then pointed to ME. He was like “yeah, Hitler would’ve liked you, you would’ve been absolutely fine. Nothing to worry about there.” And I just stood there like what am I supposed to do, exactly, with this information? It’s not exactly a compliment is it? And then I had 30 strangers just staring at me like ok I’m sorry I have blue eyes and I’m blonde I really didn’t ask for that comment. Honestly, this isn’t the first time this exact point has been made. I remember being in year 9 history and being told the exact same thing, but I really didn’t expect it to be brought up in the middle of a tour of an actual concentration camp. It didn’t really bother me though, if anything I found it kind of funny, especially knowing a WW2 historian had a sense of humour. Though all historians have to be a bit cooky don’t they?
Anyway, if anyone happens to be in Munich for the summer I would really recommend going to Dachau and doing one of these tours, or at least sneaking onto the back of one. It was really incredible! Just maybe make sure you’re a brunette beforehand, you might get some unwanted attention otherwise.
I must’ve gotten some good karma during the day, because taking the trains back into Freising was significantly less stressful than on the way there. Everything ran on time and I even made the earlier train from Munich back out to Freising. I was so confident in my abilities that I popped my headphones on and listened to a podcast on the way back.
Stepping off that platform back into Freising honestly felt like a massive accomplishment. I’d taken 4 trains and 2 buses to a place I’d never been before, in a language I didn’t understand, and with some hiccups along the way, yet I figured it out and everything worked itself out. I was practically skipping back to the apartment like yep, that’s me. I just went to Dachau and back in a day. I was on such a confidence high I even went to the grocery store on the way home to get a little sweet treat to surprise Alex with.
The day ended so perfectly, we almost finished season 2 of Bridgerton, which I couldn’t believe he had never seen before (don’t worry, he’s completely obsessed) and found a little café around the corner to get some dinner from. We’ve got the last episode of the season to watch tomorrow, and I think Alex has started to feel better so we’re hoping to be able to head into Munich in the afternoon, and do some fun activities. Not ruining our plans though, you’ll just have to stay up to date with tomorrow’s upload! 😉
Currently MIA,
Lauren x
