München: Dachau

After the magic of yesterday, today's main attraction was just about the complete opposite emotion. I made my way out to Dachau, about 15km outside of München, to visit the WWII concentration camp memorial site. Luckily, I met a couple from Maryland on the bus out there, so I had someone to walk around with and not have to experience all that alone. The site isn't just a memorial site...it is the actual site of the camp, liberated only 60 short years ago. We walked around the whole place, going through the role-call area, rubbled foundations where the barracks were built, and inter-denominational faith memorials that had been set up in the years after Dachau. We walked through reconstructed barracks, saw a documentary, and browsed through the museum. The tour also took us through the actual crematorium used for a majority of the murders: the waiting room, the undressing room, the "shower" room, and the furnace room. Between yesterday's excursion to Bavaria and today's trip to Dachau, I really didn't get to see a whole lot of Munich itself, but it was easily one of the most memorable parts of my year. I did lounge around the English Gardens (a really big city park) and enjoy a mas of Hofbrau original lager at the Hofbrauhaus, home of Oktoberfest, before I left town, but the other sights will have to remain for another trip to Munich.