Mathausen Concentration Camp

The most life-affirming and deep thought experience that I have had in a long time. Going to Mathausen concentration camp has forever altered the way I think. When we drove through the village it was quiet and raining. A somewhat sombre beginning to the day. We drove up a hill, through a forest to the walls of the camp. Even from the outside, it was awe-inspiring and chilling. I felt sick inside but knew equally that it was something that I had to do. It was important. The walls were high and made of cold stone. There was one way in, one way out. Before we entered the camp we went to the information session to watch a 45 minute documentary on the camp. It was horrific to see the live footage of what soldier found when they eventually liberated it in 1945. It was the last of the camps to be liberated from the Nazis. After that, we walked down to the camp and through the gates that countless thousands had been marched through in the 30s and 40s at the point of a gun. When you enter, there is an absolute sense of dread. You know what has happened and you know how many souls still reside in the place.

The landscape is spartan, cold and meticulous in straight lines. The only housing is two rows of barraks with no heating, and no bathrooms. Many of them house photos of the atrocities.
Everyone split up to have their own experiences. It was very personal. I walked out the back to the fields and read the information about what had used to be there. Apparently they were some of the original barracks. Behind that was the Ash pile. It was where the cremated remains of those who had been killed were dumped by their fellow prisoners. On that site is now a cross. In the distance, behind the Ash dump they still have the wooden sniper posts for the soldiers to keep an eye on the prisoners and shoot anyone who tried to escape.
Back in the housing and barracks area below them was the most horrific area of the whole place. The crematorium and gas chambers. I stood outside the building for a few minutes, unable to step through the doors. There was such sense of oppression about the place. Eventually I walked inside.
There are no words to describe how I felt. Fear, disgust, horror, pain, sadness, anguish, none of these words fit.

I walked through the various rooms. The first room I walked into was the first crematorium, laden with flowers and candles and flags of those who have visited. The next room was a storage room for the bodies waiting to be burnt. The room after that was a gas chamber. I had to force myself to go inside. I felt sick. It looked so much like a shower block. That is what they told the men, women and children when they entered, that they were going for a shower. Beside that was another store room to drag the gassed bodied into. In a seemingly empty room there was a plaque on the wall that told that the room was used for hangings. I looked up and there was the metal plank used for holding the ropes with the remains of one of the ropes still attached.

There was another room with more cremators. In that room, all over the walls were pictures of those who were killed at the camp. Their families had put them there after the war.

The last room, the one that had the biggest impact on me and is the one that will stay with me forever, was the room they used to strip the dead bodies of their gold teeth and any other valuables that they may have hidden on their bodies. All that was in the room was a huge stone slab table, at waist level. There was nothing else really in that room, but it was the most horrifying for the fact that it was so Spartan and uniform and served a very clear purpose.

Not surprisingly, I had broken down well before this point. I think I started crying the minute I stepped foot on the road that ran between the barracks. I didn’t stop crying until we had been back on the bus for about 10 minutes or so.

It was the most sobering experience of my life. I have never felt that way and every time I think about it and I look at the pictures, I remember what I saw and what had happened there only 70 years ago.
That is what I am slowly coming to realise as I move through Europe. There is a very dark history, and I am not even talking about five hundred of years ago, where it is almost forgivable because of their ignorance, these horrible things have all taken place in the last 100 years. I am forever changed for that experience and I am humbled by it.

After Mathausen in the morning and a pretty sombre 20 minute drive we stopped for some lunch before heading on to Munich for one night.

We arrived into Munich in the evening and dropped our things off at the hotel then we headed off for a short walking tour. It was dark, as it always seems to be, but I am lucky to see everything so beautifully lit with their Christmas decorations still up. Being in Munich did mean that we had to do one very important thing. We had to go to a beer hall. And boy was it a beer hall. We walked into Hoffbaurhaus, a beer hall seats 1500, and is also a restaurant. If I had to imagine what the Vikings used to eat like in their halls that would be similar. Lots of tables, everyone in close, lots of beer and LOTS of meat dishes.

They love pork over here. Love it so much that pretty much every meat dish is pork... or sausage. I did try to look for knockvurst sausage, though I am not actually sure if a) that is even the spelling, and b) if is it a real food. In the end I settled on bockwurst sausage with potato salad and a basket of bread. It was tasty but not nearly as tasty as my 1 litre shandy. Oh yes, 1 litre. It was massive and required the use of my strong hand just to lift it when I first got given it. At the beer hall that also had a live ompha band playing. There were even wearing lederhosen. Woohoo!
It was a fun night and I was mightly tempted to buy, for lack of a better word, a beer wench outfit that they apparently wear to weddings and traditional ceremonies and at Oktoberfest. They were very pretty dresses. I am sure I could have yodelled if I had one.