Sunday, November 25, 2007, 6:40 pm
More from Munich
MUNICH — The Internet access in the hostel we are staying in is very fickle, hence the lack of posts over the past few days. Still, we’ve done a lot, so here’s an update:
We traveled to Nuremberg on Tuesday, and this photo was taken at the main grandstand at Zeppelin Field, which was where Adolf Hitler led many Nazi rallies. After World War II, American troops blew up the large swastika atop the grandstand. These days, skateboarders use the grandstand’s steps as something of a skate park and graffiti, such as this, covers its main doorway. It has essentially been left to rot.
The Nazi eagle still sits atop a building in Munich that was the first Nazi headquarters. Though the swastika has been removed, it suspiciously has been left, unlike a vast majority of Nazi symbolism around Germany.
A subtle memorial outside of a building at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich to local members of the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance organization. Five of the university’s students and one professor were arrested and executed for their resistance activities. Recreations of the leaflets the group distributed to denounce the Third Reich have been installed in the ground.
Swans outside of Nymphenburg Palace, which was used as the summer residence of the Bavarian royalty starting in the 17th century.
A protest in the heart of Munich’s pedestrian zone. We had no idea what they were protesting.
A view of the city from the top of St. Peter’s Church.
Me looking at the city from the top of St. Peter’s Church.
“Work will liberate you.” This sign is what greeted prisoners at Dachau concentration camp, one of the Nazis’ many labor camps during the Holocaust. We visited the grounds on Friday, and it was indescribably gut-wrenching. I think seeing the crematoria and the fences and the guard towers and the execution walls is something everyone should do to, in a way, bear witness to those atrocities that happened only a few decades ago.
We got a chance to meet with the Dachau archivist, and he showed us this artifact not on display in the camp’s extensive exhibition. It is a figure of a Dachau prisoner that a prisoner made from his daily bread rations. His assigned number and the badge that signified he was a political prisoner are on the base.That’s all for now. We’ll back in Florida, reeking of the famous European secondhand smoke, on Tuesday.
