Mike D Goes to Europe!

With my birthday done, Saturday, November the 1st, felt something like the epilogue of my European story. It was to be my last full day before returning home.

Originally, I had planned to spend the day in Salzburg. It’s about an hour and a half by train from Munich. I thought it would be fun to see Mozart’s home and the Von Trap’s (”Sound of Music”) house, as well as adding another country to my list. But November 1st is a national holiday, All Saints Day, in both Germany and Austria, and most placed would be closed. Additionally, the forecast for Salzburg was for rain, but Munich was surprisingly sunny and relatively warm. I decided it wasn’t worth going to Salzburg under the circumstances, and resolved to have a relaxing, low-key day in the Munich area.

And what better way to relax than to visit a nice camp for the day? Granted, it was a former Nazi concentration camp, but it still had the word “camp” in it, and I think that’s what’s important here.

Dachau is about 45 minutes from downtown Munich, by a combination of train and bus. It is open on holidays and is always free. You can get an audio guide for a few Euros, but I opted instead for the guided tour, which was quite good.

The place is every bit as sobering as you might expect. According to records, the gas chamber at this particular camp was never used, but that doesn’t make it any less chilling to walk through it. The original crematorium was so busy that they built a second, larger one. As you walk the grounds, you can imagine the smoke that once came out of their chimneys and realize that the earth you are walking on was once covered in the ashes of human remains.

Unlike museums, there is no food being sold at the camp. By showing up around lunch time, I had gambled and lost there. I was so hungry on the way back, that I stooped to something I had no intention of doing while in Europe - I went to McDonald’s. The train from Dachau to Munich wasn’t due for 30 minutes and the Golden Arches was the only place open. Some American I had met along the way (I think it was Catherine from Charlotte) had told me that the meat in European McDonald’s was actually much better than in the States, and that I had to try the “Royale with Cheese.” Well, maybe she went in France. Here in Germany, it is pretty much an identical experience to being back home.

As I sat there and munched on my Doppel-Cheeseburger and Pommes Frites, I couldn’t help but be struck by the irony. The cows that make these burgers are treated in much the same way as the prisoners at the camps. They don’t do forced labor, but they are treated abysmally, until one day they are killed and made into something useful for someone else.

Update: here are some photos from this part of my trip:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/therealmiked/sets/72157608746950597/

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