We had about a 3 hour drive from Frankfurt to Munich and Tita got to experience the Autobahn in all its glory. Though it was raining lightly, that didn´t slow down the seasoned German drivers and traffic moved along in excess of 120 even in that weather. At one point, I was waved over out of the center lane, into the far right lane by an angry German man who evidently thought my 95mph warranted me driving in the SLOWEST lane of traffic. Aunt Joyce was kind enough to let him know that I would pick up my speed one mph.....or maybe that I would move over in one minute....or maybe he was number one for pointing out the error of my ways......I´m not exactly sure what the 1 represented that she was waving at him, but I´m certain it was something positive. On a sadder note, she must have injured her pointer finger sometime during the night because she was having to signal the 1 with her middle finger.....oh well....seems to be better now.
We decided to stop at a cute little German village just before Dachau, which was our afternoon destination to see if we could find someplace to eat real German food. What a great decision. The place we found was authentic of course, as there were no other English speakers in the place. We decided to all order something different so that we could share and taste and unbelievably everything we ordered was GREAT! We had pork in beer sauce (Tita, of course), pork in cream sauce, both with handmade noodles, shrimp and calamari on noodles, and pikeperch with spinach. It is going to be hard to top this meal in the days ahead but we are certainly going to try!
We headed to Dachau feeling sated and happy, which would certainly be a contradiction to what we were about to see there.
When we got out of the car at Dachau, the first concentration camp opened by Hitler´s regime, we were instantly struck by the fact that it was finally getting much colder. We had to don our cold weather gear in order to prepare for touring this mostly outdoor site. Well, in a final bright moment before our tour of Dachau, we gave Germany a glimpse of how Texas women dress for the cold. As you can see, some of us, not mentioning any names, were quite the sight
.
Our experience at Dachau was really surreal. All of my life I have heard of the holocaust and the horrors of what happened to millions of people. Honestly, until walking over the ground where such atrocities took place, and seeing the conditions that people were forced to live in, and feeling the bitter cold on my face after learning that men and women were put out in those elements barely dressed or at times, not dressed at all......until seeing the photos of what happened there.....I really didn´t understand.
When Cait visited Auschwitz several years ago she said that she was glad she had gone, but never wanted to see those things again. I completely understand. Somber doesn´t even begin to describe our mood when we left that place. I am thankful it was our last stop for the day. Tonight has been a time of reflective thought and rest. Tomorrow we will be ready to laugh and giggle and explore again, but for tonight, I just remember those words on the wall......NEVER AGAIN:
Glad Joyce's finger is better. ROFL
ReplyDelete