Sunday, September 7th
Today we drove to Salzburg. On the way out of Germany, we stopped at Dachau. I originally had looked into doing the Nazi Germany study abroad tour, but later decided to do the London Art trip, as it related more toward my concentration of study, so I was excited to see this site. I always worry about my word usage in such context. I don’t really think it is acceptable to say that you enjoy learning about such things, as it is such an atrocity of the history of mankind, however it is always a subject that has fascinated me and I have strived to learn more about.
Seeing the camps, in person, left a feeling that is indescribable. It was dark, gloomy, and raining when we were there too- it almost seemed as if such a place couldn’t have any other conditions, permanently scarred by the sadism that occurred there years ago. We walked around with our umbrellas and examined the vast areas that once were the barracks of the prisoners.
Seeing the ovens, showers, and other rooms was almost an unspeakable feeling. As we walked into this building, church bells started to sound. This combined with the poor weather and what we knew we were about to see set a spine-chilling eeriness looming up my spine. One of the signs in the room said that the prisoners were hanged in that room, in front of the ovens that would dispose of them later… We saw the ditches in which the prisoners were shot and disposed of, in addition to barbed wire masses everywhere.
As we were walking out of the camp, I walked over a little bridge that rather caught my attention. The bridge connected two barbed wire fenced areas- the barracks area to the main execution area, but when on the bridge, there seemed an extra eeriness about it. There were woods, and the water flowed through there with the seaweed underneath flowing, and barbed wire masses in the trees beyond. The entire time I was standing there, I couldn’t help but picture the possibilities of what could have been flowing through that creek years ago…
We left and continued on our journey to Austria, but it was one of those situations where no one really knows exactly how to respond to this situation. It’s not really one of those situations where you can instantly turn off the emotion of what you just saw and continue on with you day. I am writing this entry later on in the trip due to the fact that I hadn’t had time on the tour to write this, and still, I am having trouble taking in everything that I witnessed that day. I don’t believe there is any way to even come close to imagining what they had to go through…
The drive to Salzburg was beautiful. Really, every drive has been. It was my first time really seeing mountains, and seeing the low clouds and the haze around them was absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen such beautiful landscapes in all my life- being here has especially made me see how flat Wisconsin really is…
Seeing the camps, in person, left a feeling that is indescribable. It was dark, gloomy, and raining when we were there too- it almost seemed as if such a place couldn’t have any other conditions, permanently scarred by the sadism that occurred there years ago. We walked around with our umbrellas and examined the vast areas that once were the barracks of the prisoners.
Seeing the ovens, showers, and other rooms was almost an unspeakable feeling. As we walked into this building, church bells started to sound. This combined with the poor weather and what we knew we were about to see set a spine-chilling eeriness looming up my spine. One of the signs in the room said that the prisoners were hanged in that room, in front of the ovens that would dispose of them later… We saw the ditches in which the prisoners were shot and disposed of, in addition to barbed wire masses everywhere.
As we were walking out of the camp, I walked over a little bridge that rather caught my attention. The bridge connected two barbed wire fenced areas- the barracks area to the main execution area, but when on the bridge, there seemed an extra eeriness about it. There were woods, and the water flowed through there with the seaweed underneath flowing, and barbed wire masses in the trees beyond. The entire time I was standing there, I couldn’t help but picture the possibilities of what could have been flowing through that creek years ago…
We left and continued on our journey to Austria, but it was one of those situations where no one really knows exactly how to respond to this situation. It’s not really one of those situations where you can instantly turn off the emotion of what you just saw and continue on with you day. I am writing this entry later on in the trip due to the fact that I hadn’t had time on the tour to write this, and still, I am having trouble taking in everything that I witnessed that day. I don’t believe there is any way to even come close to imagining what they had to go through…
The drive to Salzburg was beautiful. Really, every drive has been. It was my first time really seeing mountains, and seeing the low clouds and the haze around them was absolutely beautiful. I’ve never seen such beautiful landscapes in all my life- being here has especially made me see how flat Wisconsin really is…
No comments:
Post a Comment