Dachau Concentration Camp

Kenny and I decided to delay our arrival into Paris by a few hours so that we could stop in Munich and visit the concentration camp located in Dachau, Germany.  We chose this camp specifically because it has a good memorial site and it is between Austria and Paris (in some sense).  We traveled from Salzburg to Munich where we stored our bags and then took the short hop to Dachau.  The luggage lockers actually gave us a lot of trouble and it took us quite some time to get all our bags situated.

The bus service to the camp drops you off right at the entrance where there is a very nice store and welcome center.  It's deceiving though because as soon as you pass through that the mood changes and there is no longer anything nice about the place.  They have memorials and a museum located in buildings still standing from the original camp, but the feeling is very different.  I had a weird knot in the pit of my stomach as I walked across the grounds where daily roll call was held and it was hard for me to weave in and out of the buildings knowing the terrible things that went on there.  I think that worst was the crematorium, which is set up so that you can walk through the preparation and extermination rooms.  I almost didn't go through the extermination room; I was rooted at the door and my feet just didn't want to carry me inside.  It was the strangest sort of feeling to be standing there but eventually I willed myself through.  It was a very moving experience and I'm glad I had the chance to visit the place.

We had lunch there before we got back on the bus that took us back to Munich.  Our train to Paris didn't leave for a few hours after we got there so we wandered around the station, which is actually quite large.  There were many souvenir shops there to keep us occupied and soon we had to gather up our things (once again we had trouble with the luggage lockers and were actually afraid we were going to end up missing our train, but it all worked out) and head to the platform.  We took a three hour ride to Mannheim before getting on our last train to Paris.  We watched The Sound of Music because Kenny gave it to me as a belated Christmas present and it helped us to pass the time.  The train to Paris was actually one of the high-speed ones and it didn't really suit Kenny well so he wasn't in a great mood when we arrived.  It was also late and we had both had had long days so we were tired.  We began walking to our hotel and soon found ourselves asking someone for directions.  Kenny was doing most of the talking but I turned around at one point to check a street sign and when I looked back my camera bag was gone.  I lost everything that was most important:  my passport, drivers license, camera, wallet...ugh.  It was not a good way to end the day but we were lucky because the guy we were talking to was really nice and actually took us to the police station.  We were there for awhile and Kenny did most of the talking because I was too distraught.  I stayed up late last night to cancel my credit cards and I actually went to the US embassy this morning and was issued an emergency passport.  I know it's not the end of the world, but it was pretty upsetting and frustrating.  I don't know if I'll ever see those things again, but I'll keep my hopes up for a couple of days and pray that a good samaritan turns the bag in should it randomly appear somewhere.