Dachau

During spring break 1988, I went with other students and parents and my German teacher to four German-speaking countries: Austria, West Germany, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The following is part of a series of travel journal excerpts.

This is the only photo I took at Dachau. Notice the metal sculpture right of center.

Herr Heinold bought us a lunch of sausage in Semmeln (much like hotdogs in buns) and Coca Cola. It was an open place outdoors, and we ate standing up. [We got this lunch, in other words, at a hot dog stand or food truck: a small white building or trailer with a window through which you communicated with the people serving the food. And every time I come across the word “sausage,” I shall imagine tofu sausage.]

At about 1:00 pm, we returned to the hotel to freshen up for fifteen minutes.

Next we took the tour bus to Dachau, the first concentration camp set up in Germany.

The Nazis set up three types of concentration camps: A, B, and C. A was not so horrible (relatively speaking) and everyone got out of such alive. B was mediocre, and in C nobody survived — it was full of executions. Dachau had started out as A, but ended as C. It was horrifying, and after our pleasant morning. Dachau now has a museum, a small building. Inside, we saw a filmstrip in Englisch.

All the barracks had been torn down except two remaining for show, that had bare unpainted wood bunk beds. We entered one of these two…