Dachau Concentration Camp

For our last weekend in Germany, we planned to visit Austria one last time. On the way, however, we decided to stop and see the Dachau Concentration Camp.
There are so many sites like this in Germany, and we have had a strong desire to visit them. We have been concerned about bringing our children to such a place. We are open and honest with them about things like that, but we were worried about the images that they might see. We both decided that we would really regret not visiting a concentration camp while we were here. So, we decided to head to Dachau:

Dachau was the largest Concentration Camp and the only one that lasted throughout WWII.
In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau.

Just past this gate is where they held roll call every morning and evening. Prisoners were forced to stand completely still and motionless, often for up to an hour at a time, while the SS guards called roll. If there were any discrepancies, the roll taking was a longer process. Often, the weak, sick or exhausted prisoners would collapse during this time. Other prisoners were forbidden to help them.

We read of how the prisoners were starved, beaten and killed. After walking a bit, Daphne said, "Mom, can you even believe how mean they were? You can't just tell someone they have to be still and not move at all!" We found it a little humorous that the part about being still seemed to have the greatest impact on her.

One of the things that was surprising to us is that two-thirds of the prisoners were political prisoners and nearly one-third were Jews. We knew that there were political prisoners, we just didn't realize how many. These political prisoners were sometimes politicians who opposed the Nazi Party , or just average citizens who said something the Nazi Party didn't like.

25,613 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps, primarily from disease, malnutrition and suicide.

This is one of the watchtowers around the perimeter of the camp. You can see the strip of land that goes around in front of the gate. If any prisoner approached this area, they were immediately fired upon. It was common for prisoners to do this intentionally as a way to escape the suffering inside the camp.

This is me trying to read to the kids about the gate- I couldn't quite make it through the whole thing. Being in a place where such atrocities occured was more difficult than I anticipated. It was so hard to try and explain these terrible events to our sweet children.

Next we walked over and saw the beds...

There were never enough beds for the prisoners- they often slept head to foot and squeezed into beds too small for their bodies.

These cement foundations show what used to be the buildings of the infirmary. Beginning in 1942, the SS conducted cruel medical experiments on the prisoners here. They included malaria, phlegmon, altitude, and hypothermia experiments. For most prisoners, the infirmary was a place of death.

We moved next to the Crematorium. This next section was located outside of the main gate, so when prisoners were taken here, they often thought they were being freed. Prisoners went out the gate and never came back. The SS guards took them to a building and told them they would be showered, or disinfected. Apparently, the German word is sort of a derogatory term that would only be used to describe disinfecting animals or plants.

The prisoners were told to disrobe for their shower, and they waited in holding rooms. Then they moved into the Gas Chamber:

The "Shower Room"

The Gas even came through fake shower heads so that the prisoners wouldn't become frightened and stampede.

The next rooms on wither side of the Crematorium were death chambers, which housed the deadbodies

Next we saw the Crematorium, where the bodies of the dead were cremated...

> Just outside, there is a grave where they buried the ashes of the thousands and thousands of prisoners who were killed here.

They had several memorials on the site: A Catholic Memorial, A Protestant memorial, A Russian Orthodox Memorial, and here Isaac and I are in front of the Jewish memorial.

The Catholic Memorial This was a very interesting experience for us. I feel it was educational for the children and for us, and that we are better for having visited. That said, I would not ever want to go there again. The feelings I experienced while walking on the same ground where such horrific events occured... well, there just are not words.
My heart aches for the people who suffered there. I am horrified that such a terrifying dictatorship was able to fester in modern times.

I have renewed faith in the power and beauty of democracy and I am thankful for my right to Free Speech- I am so thankful to those who fought to remove the evil oppressors who once lived in that horrible camp.

As the signs in Dachau read, "Never Again", so that is our prayer. Never Again.

Life in the Hotel Part 4...

Our Home:
This is our bed and if you look to the left part of the picture you can see the infamous "pleather" arm chair that my daughter vandalized. :( Stay tuned on how that little drama turns out!


Our bathroom:
It has been awesome to have this kid-suite, where they give you an additional child-sized sink.

The kid's room:

Okay, so I poached this pic from the hotel's website- but that really is our room! Ours is the only one with that wallpaper and well, I just couldn't ever get their room clean enough to take a picture. So, this one will have to do! Once again, having an adjoining room for the children has made all the difference in the world. Being able to put them to bed and still have some time to ourselves has been a huge blessing and we are very grateful!

Our kitchen! I was really excited about this kitchen at first, and while it is much better than what I expected, I am anxious for my dishwasher and a freezer that I can actually fit something in!

Our living/dining area (and two really cute kids):

And that about does it for the hotel room. It's actually quite spacious. It just feels smaller every day when there are three very active young children living inside! It is definitely bigger than the apartment where Matt and I lived when we were first married, so I can't complain too much. I wouldn't have tried to raise 3 children in that apartment, though! :)

Our Car: We think it's hysterical that it is called a Ford Kuga. We are always laughing at how they have American cars here, but they are models that we never see in the states, like a Ford Mondeo or a Ford Galaxy. It's a little weird... Our car is a diesel and a stick shift, which has been interesting at times but over all it's been a really good vehicle for us. I'm anxious to have my van and a little more space between my kids!!!

Our Grocery Store:

(I totally snagged the next two pics from Liz's blog! Thanks, Liz. I kept forgetting to bring my camera with me, so this will have to do)

We heard that we would save a lot of money by shopping at the Commissary, and we were really grateful for the privelege. It is definitely cheaper than if we had to shop at German markets, but definitely not cheaper than grocery shopping in the States. We are just thankful that we can get our American products and labels we can read, etc...

Because my freezer is so small, we end up grocery shopping 2 or 3 times a week. Our laundry mat:

Our laundry mat is really smaller than this one, but you get the idea. I hate doing laundry here. It is the bane of my existence in Germany. I find laundry at home to be somewhat relaxing, but here it is just a pain. I will say that I LOVE the dryers! I can throw 3 wash loads in one dryer and all the clothes are dry in about 45 minutes! It's the part where I have to fold them all lin a filthy laundry room with no air conditioning and three kids that makes me sweat. Fortunately, this is now a team effort- Matt watches the kids while I do laundry!

Our Friends:

Steve and Liz have been so much fun to travel with and just to hang out with! It is kind of crazy that they live right across town from us and it took coming to the other side of the ocean for our families to get together. They have been ever-patient with our punctuality challenged family, and we feel blessed to know them!

An American Party and A German Park

Our Family Home Evenings have been kind of long on activities and short on lessons. :( We're doing pretty good, but we get inventive. This past Monday, we went to a nearby park for some Monday night fun!

So, I know I have mentioned how the German Parks are low on safety standards and high on fun. This particular park looks like a bunch of sharp wooden poles fell from the sky and someone just said, "Hey, that looks like a good place for some kids to play!"

Matt was just telling me about a guy he works with whose daughter was playing on a German playground. She was swinging on the monkey bars and fell off and hit the back of her head. No big deal, that happens all the time in America, right? Except that just beneath these monkey bars were concrete stairs, which is where she hit her head. Not exactly the best planning and forethought with the construction of the park, huh? Brilliant.

The kids have been asking to play here for a while, this park is just outside the military base where Matt works. They did have a total blast playing:

We had a little picnic on the bench with some very nutritious food.

But the highlight of the park was this swing. It's connected by pulleys at the top, so the swings can affect one another. One person can move walk their swing back and forth and sort of launch the other person into the air. Then, that first person can jump on and swing and steal the other person's momentum so that they are swinging realy high instead. And, if you get them both swinging really high, their feet smash into eachother. I didn't have the camera when Daphne was on, which I regret a lot. I don't think I have ever heard her laugh that hard!

You can see Matt and Isaac trying it out here:

On Friday, before we headed out for the weekend, Matt's work had a party for all the families. It was so fun! We have definitely done lots of amazing and wonderful things this summer, but we have kind of missed the All-American cookouts, etc... They had a huge potluck and grilled chicken and hamburgers. it was awesome. Other than the bees. Everywhere we go here, the bees converge upon us! Since we are traveling, we are eating outside often, and the bees here are very attracted to us and are extremely persistent! My friend, Liz said she thinks they like us because we wear deoderant, so we smell better than most of the people they see. :) We sat at the picnic table and took a bite then swatted a bee, took a bite, swatted a bee.... you get the picture!

They had bounce houses ,

And Pets:
And Face Painting:

and a "Guess show many Pieces of Candy are in the Jar" Game, which Daphne won courtesy of a little help from her Dad:

And water guns, which had to be filled in this big green bucket. Once Tori found the water, we couldn't get her to do anything else! She kept trying to get in!

Eleventh Weekend: Burg Eltz

For our final adventure of the Eleventh Weekend, we drove a long, windy road up to the mysterious and ancient Burg Eltz, which means "castle on the stream". This castle is over 800 years old, and it's furnishings are over 500 years old. This was by far the best preserved castle we have seen in Europe. My cute kiddos in front of our last castle:

We had to wait in this little courtyard area for the English Speaking tour to begin...

The guide informed us that people were much shorter 500 years ago, so the tall folks would need to watch their heads. Which, of course, meant that Matthew spent much of the time hunched over. ..

The only place we could take pictures was in the treasury.

And, umm... speaking of hight differences.

They just don't make 'em like they used to! Can you believe that? Isaac is closer to the height of this knight. The suit is even raised off the floor a couple of inches!Isaac loved touring all the weapons!

Wow!! This was a fun weekend- we visited 5 cities and 3 countries, and somehow it was one of our more relaxing weekends. Stay tuned for pics of our last week's adventures!

Eleventh Weekend- Cochem on The Mosel River

We headed out of Trier on a short (2 hour) drive to Cochem. Both towns lie along the Mosel River- which is such a lovely area. The valley is peaceful and sleepy, with little romantic villages tucked in between green vineyards. The drive was beautiful! We stopped and Matt got a great picture from a cliff-top looking over Cochem: We had to climb up a steep little hill to get a picture with the castle in the background, and our son, who is constantly picking up sticks and rocks from off the ground... picked up a huge chunk of flint and sliced his hand on it. I am always teasing him that he will see more of the rocks, sticks and dirt of Europe than he will of the actual sites!

And since we had a picture of Isaac's owie, we of course had to get picture of Daphne's owie. For every rock Isaac picks up, it seems that Daphne trips on another one. The lovely spiral staircases we see everywhere worked against us at the hotel that morning. I'm constantly reminding them to walk on the side of the stairs where the steps are wide and not on the little narrow parts. Unfortunately, that morning Daphne's excitement got the better of her and she ran down the stairs on the narrow side, sliding down four or five metal steps. Poor thing. Her back is still bruised right there.

Our castle picture:

And of course, Tori wants to walk everywhere herself, even down steep hills covered with rocks:

We headed into town then and checked out all the cool souvenier shops that line the river...

And for some all-around cuteness!!

And we climbed up onto the bridge for some lovely photos:

We tried so hard to get this picture on the bridge- Tori did not feel like posing and cars kept driving by and blocking the shot... But we got one eventually: