Dachau, Munchen

We had a total of about 7 hours in Munich before our train left for Prague, so we decided to see the first concentration camp built by the Germans. (dismal, I know).
Honestly, when we arrived on site, I was disturbed.
It's so strange to think how an event like that can permeate the air for years after most of the evidence is gone.
The Holocaust Museum in D.C. is sombering and sometimes difficult, but Leslie and I both agreed that Dachau different. It was a cold, gloomy and disturbing place to be.
We made our visit a quick one.
Remains of the pathway that led the Nazi captives to the camp are still there. The gate still remains intact, reading ARBEIT MACHT FREI, or the common Nazi slogan throughout concentration camps, "work will make you free."
A couple of the buildings are still there, and there are several monuments standing throughout the camp comemorating the suffering of all victims of the Nazis.
We actually walked through the same building where incoming prisoners were forced to remove their clothing and take showers. Chills.
We saw the area designated for the crematorium, and we saw examples of what a barracks would have looked like.
Dachau was built to hold 6,000 prisoners. When the camp was liberated, there were 32,000 people there. Unbelievable.
And the people in the town never understood until bodies were uncovered. They actually showed us video of townspeople being shown (I apologize for being blatant) the piles of the skeletal deceased. They were shocked, looking away and then back again as though it was unreal. Some even wept. But the events of that war were very real, and it was really hard to be there.
So we left, headed for Prague.