That fortnight was unusually bad for me. Sometimes your whole universe comes crushing down before your eyes and you just watch yourself being torn apart. You are compelled to become a helpless spectator of your own destruction. You accept what you see and you sleep while your eyes remain open. It often happens with many if not with every one. Personal life is too private and I won’t strain my readers with my trials, tribulations and travails. To make it short the critical moment when I was sinking in the morass of life a child hood friend who had well ensconced himself in Germany, offered me a change of the situation. He suggested a few days visit to Germany with a promise that it would alter my perception of situation no matter how bad it could have been.
It is easy to hop around the different cities in Europe than any other continent. You don’t need visa of every country if you got for one. London had become too mundane and sanctimonious to brighten up a bruised soul. I quickly packed my necessary baggage, took the earliest flight for Munich and sallied forth into the world of Mercedes, BMW’s and Porches. A day in the Munich and walk-through tour of the city did make some subtle difference but the next day’s program was a secret that my friend advised to appreciate the way it comes.
Next morning he announced that we were going to Dachau. The very mention of the name of this town conjures up some deadliest memories of human history. As early as 1935 there were jingles warning: “Dear God, make me dumb, that I may not to Dachau come.” Dachau concentration camp (German: Konzentrationslager (KZ) Dachau) was the first Nazi concentration camp opened in Germany. It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, about 16 km northwest of Munich in the state of Bavaria, a state of Kings and aristocrats and it is located in southern Germany. Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi concentration camps that followed. Almost every community in Germany had members taken away to these camps. It was opened in March 1933. Heinrich Himmler, the Chief of Police of Munich had officially described this camp as “the first concentration camp for political prisoners.
We took Metro train No. S-2 from Munich Hoptbahnof in the direction Petershasun. Travel time was only 20 Minutes. From Dachau Rly Stn we boarded bus No. 726 to reach camp site, the first destination of our day.
“I’ve brought you a place where once every hope, every dream, every aspiration and every sense that nature has vested in a human beings was paired down to absolute minimum. You can’t fall down further. There existed no abyss after this.” My friend told me as we approached the main Gate. Dachau is city that runs in circle and as a pantry man informed – even today the spirits of the victims roam in circles here. More than 2 lakhs prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau of whom two-thirds were political prisoners and nearly one-third were Jews. 25,613 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its sub camps primarily from disease, malnutrition and suicide. In early 1945, there was a typhus epidemic in the camp followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the weaker prisoners died.
On 29 April 1945, KZ Dachau was surrendered to the American Army by SS-Sturmscharführer Heinrich Wicker. A vivid description of the surrender appears in Brig. Gen. Henning Linden’s official “Report on Surrender of Dachau Concentration Camp”:
“As we moved down along the west side of the concentration camp and approached the southwest corner, three people approached down the road under a flag of truce. We met these people about 75 yards north of the southwest entrance to the camp. These three people were a Swiss Red Cross representative and two SS troopers who said they were the camp commander and assistant camp commander and that they had come into the camp on the night of the 28th to take over from the regular camp personnel for the purpose of turning the camp over to the advancing Americans. The Swiss Red Cross representative acted as interpreter and stated that there were about 100 SS guards in the camp who had their arms stacked except for the people in the tower. He said he had given instructions that there would be no shots fired and it would take about 50 men to relieve the guards, as there were 42,000 half-crazed prisoners of war in the camp, many of them typhus infected.”
I was feeling nausea and wanted to leave the sight immediately.
“Do you realize that there are and there had been and there would always be people who are more unfortunate than you ? I have booked a taxi for Lake Steinberg !” I was listening to my friend. In a few minutes a smart lady appeared with her cab and we got into it leaving behind the goriest sight of human depravity.
Within minutes we were in a different world. Along the roads there were shady tree-lined avenues, tranquil orchards, cobbled streets and we passed through the villages whose farmsteads and houses have retained much of their original charm. White stork could be seen as reminder of virgin nature. We saw the glittering waterways and wooded hills. fortified stone churches and beautiful hard working people. Finally we reached Lake Steinberg. Glaciers and melt water from the last ice age formed a landscape here that has a touch of Switzerland about it. Lush green pine covered hills surround the idyllic lake. You can observe very closely how geology was shaped by the last ice age. A whole host of breathtaking sights did wonders to my spirit. It was evening on the road and we had a nice discussion with our beautiful taxi driver who was not that smart in English :
“My mother taxi; my father taxi; me taxi…”
“What about your kids ?” I asked her.
“No, they go school !”
