Confronting Dachau - "It Isn't Good" (Continued)
On the bus ride to the concentration camp I felt silent. The bus was full, mostly with teenagers on a school trip to the camp. They talked and joked. I didn't.
At the bus stop for the memorial I walked heavily, my legs carrying me as if reluctantly to the campsite. Inside the campground I felt, not fear or nervousness, but only a weighty solemnity. The first "attraction" was a U shaped building -
originally kitchen, laundry, and one of the locations where prisoners were tortured. Now it contains offices, an exhibition of photographs with German captions, and a small movie theater. No trace of the original functions remains.
I didn't stay for the movie. I've seen enough movies.
| From the museum I walked down the left side of
the camp. To my right lay rows of elongated rectangles, where the prisoners'
barracks had stood - now filled with pebbles. In front of me stood
a guard tower. To my left stood barbed wire which bordered a ditch
which bordered a stretch of grass. Walking onto that grass was a capitol
offense -- the guards would shoot anyone who dared to so trespass.
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