Once out of the Munich station, I need again find a room, or zimmer in German, for the night. Not surprisingly, there are many hotels around the station. But surprisingly, I was told when enquiring that were no rooms. Probably I have came in too early, with guests not yet booking out, none of the hotels were willing to take me. There were signs for pensions as I walked away from the station. They look like an options, but, going by the word "pensions", I thought they would only take in guests who are German pensioners. As I walk further and further away from the station, the lugguages were weighing heavy on my shoulders. I decide to gave the next pension a try. It turns out the Margit Pension is just another B&B hotel, they take all-comers. The guy at the reception was of pensioner age, there was room for the night, and he gave me a good enough price: "Breakfast is free..." and as we could hear the clinking of utencils from the breakfast room right behind, added "but not today, tomorrow morning, you can take for free.". I was given the room right next to the reception, a little noisier, but the window open up to a small courtyard, with ivy crawling up the wall.
I survey the tourist brochures on display at the counter and bought some back to the room. It looks like central Munich can be seen within 1 to 2 days. There was a day trip from Munich that interest me: a trip to the Dachau Concentration Camp from the Nazi era. That should cover day one for me. The tour gather at the main town square, the Marienplatz. After shower and a little shut-eye, I headed out to the Marienplatz.
It was still too early for the tourist hourde to descend on the Platz. I have sometimes to check out the streets and lanes next to the Platz. There may be tower clocks, old buildings with pointed towers, but this is no Disneyland. The beer halls here, including one sake hall, may depend on tourists for much of their business.
But there are shops here that looks like they are catering largely to local clientele. It is surprising to find a few Apotheke, pharmacy not only selling western pills and tablets, but also traditional herbal medicine.
Not far from shops selling LVs and Chanels, there is a small market selling things from flowers to fruits.
By the time I returned to the Platz, it was crowded. Various groups of tourists were holding up placards with the name of their tours. I look for the one going to Dachau. The same company is running a free city walking tour, and most gathered under its placard were there for the free tour. Luckily there were four of us going to Dachau, profitable enough, I guess, for the tour to go ahead. I learnt later that tour guides taking on the free tour are not paid by the agencies. They actually have to pay the agencies. So, it is not hard to see that tour guides do expect tips for their work.
The fee for the Dachau tour covers the train ride to Dachau station and the guide. It does not cover the entrance fee to the Dachau camp...because there were none. It is sensible on the German part that a place of such a past is open to all for free. A bus from outside the train station goes straight to the gate of the camp visitor centre. There is still a short walk to the actual camp. There is a bookstore in the visitor centre, the Maus graphic novel can be found there, also a thick heavy volume on the topic of anti-semitism in comics and cartoon.
Our guide was from UK, of English-Polish descent. He is definitely on the left politically and probably a card-carrying member of Amnesty International and Green Peace. He has told off a few visitors who took pictures at the camp gate (the famous one with the words "Work Shall Set you free" on it) with the gate closed (it is never supposed to be once the site stopped being a concentration camp, as a memorial site, the gate stays open .) He has also made complaint about a group of misbehaving students and their teachers on a school trip, resulting in their being put on the camp blacklist.
He started the tour with a lecture of Nazi concentration camp, starting way back from World War One. Only after his lecture did we approached the gate of the camp. Before the gate I saw what looks like a platform and railway (or what was left of it). I remember the cover of a book about the more infamous Auzchwitz. It shows railway leading into the concentration camp.
For prisoners to Auzchwitz almost literally step out of the train, onto the platform and straight into the gas chamber during the last days of the war. According to the guide, the railway here wasn't used for this same grizly purpose. A well-meaning fellow, but as a casual visitor, I was unhappy that some of the time for looking at the exhibits and taking photoes were taken by the guide's lectures on humanity and universal human rights.
Of course, other times it was good to have him around, for the details he dishes out. Like how the German military send their officers to the camp as part of their training.
Contrary to common knowledge, Jews weren't the only group of prisoners incarcenerated in Dachau. Other groups include Jehovah Witness and Homosexuals. To differentiate these groups, there is a system of patches of different shapes and color that were sewn to the prisoners' uniform. One could be hauled in to the camp as a homosexual based on how he dresses. It's a bit like the guideline put out by the Malaysia government for official to look out for homosexual men 6 decades later in 2012: if one wears a V-neck t-shirt, he is likely a homosexual.
We left the camp by the back gate. This led to the gas chambers. The gas chambers were done up like a shower room. Prisoners brought to gas chambers were told to take a shower. Crystalline poison were drop into the shower room (through what looks like a rubbish bin in a HDB apartment) and the warm shower water would release the poisonous fume that would kill the prisoners. The whole elaborate arrangement was not to give a more humanne sending away of the prisoners. It was to lift a bit of guilt from the Nazi officers ordered to perform the deed: the crystal the officers dropped into the shower were by themselve not fatal, and it is the prisoners themselves who turn on the tap for the warm water that actually releases the poisonous fume. It is a warped logic, but at least it shows that there were officers in the Nazi rank to whom the killing were not something pleasurable.
I remember reading before that in the Japanese capital punishment system, execution by hanging is performed by 3 court official. Each push a button, one of which trigger the mechanism that hangs the criminal. This way, each of the official can go away thinking that there was a 66.66666% that it wasn't him that pulls the trigger that send the dead man on his way.
The last exhibit as we left to catch the next train back to Munich was a statue of a unnamed prisoner. Obviously, the guide took quite a liking to it. The statue is that of a skinny man, in an oversized cloak, eye sunken, but looking at the sky, chest puffed up and with spring in his step. It is supposed to show a Dachau prisoner on his liberation. A free man.
We hurried out to the bus station right outside the memorial camp. There was what looks like a bag lady and she was subtly begging for handouts of loose change. Maybe she figured, visitors coming off the memorial are more inclined to sympathize and give. It didn't seem to work that way.
The group "fall out' at the Munich station. Here, the mood changes, and the guide was recommending the best beer hall and clubs. So I left the guide, the Brit and two Canadian gals. They have the Maple leave flag ironed on their backpack, that's to stop others from confusing them with the American. It seems after the W. Bush years, it is no fun for a Canadian traveler to be confused with an American. On the bus, there was a row of American high school/college kids being brash and loud at the back. You could see the Canadians rolling their eyes: I rest my case.
Flipping through the tele late at night back in the hotel, there are documentaries after documentaries of the war years with black-and-white footages.
In fact on that night there were a documentary about medical experimentation on the Dachau prisoners.
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