February 2, 2003

The Gates Sat Open

DACHAU, Germany -- The drive from Eschenbach to Freising was picturesque. Snowplowed blacktop of the B470 and the A93 cut through the white Bavarian landscape after three days' snow. Driving one-handed wasn't the task I thought it would be. The crux formed in plaster underneath the fingers on my right hand worked well to manipulate the gearshift but for shifting to fifth gear. Only then did my left hand come off the wheel to cram the stick home for autobahn cruising.

I made half decent time getting to the Munich area. A stop for lunch along the A93 just past noon proved worthy of the best lunch I'd had while in Germany. At a rest stop! Florida's Turnpike has nothing on German roadside restaurants.

Dinner was the only time I left the hotel room Friday. The rest of the evening was spent trying to stave off mild pain from the pins in my wrist. Saturday would bring a little sightseeing with my last full day in der Fatherland.

It seemed ironically appropriate that golden sunlight kissed the remnants of the Dachau concentration camp Saturday afternoon. A peaceful frosting-like snow consoled the 31,000 lives ended here, but the biting air served to remind of their cold-blooded murders.

The gates sat open welcoming visitors to the death camp. 'Never again,' written in five languages, greets each person who passes through the barbed wire fence rusted by 60 years. Passing the multi-lingual greeting, the layout of the camp seems ever the boarding school until one takes the closer look they'd come for. My first minutes saw me walk across the courtyard crunching through compacted snow to the museum eingang, or entrance. I didn't come to see a display I came to bear witness. After buying a book documenting the atrocities that took place inside the fence line at Dachau I stepped back on the crunchy snow to explore the camp.

Passing the second of two rebuilt barracks I saw the cement foundations for two dozen others and realized I was standing squarely in hell. I walked from the pathway through the fresh snow and stopped feet from one of the foundations and surveyed the area where the barracks had stood.

I wept.

I just stood there and wept on that serene February morning. The clearing sits idle now but six decades earlier the buildings that stood on it housed more than 200,000 prisoners throughout the war. It still provokes powerful emotion.

About 400 meters down the line of foundations rests a small bridge connecting the camp to the kremetorium; the ovens. I strode to it slowly, but not too slowly. I wore only blue jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket. My left arm was in its proper place, but my right was pulled tight to my body clutched underneath the drooping right sleeve and breast of the jacket. It was quite cold. Experience was first, but maintaining body heat ran a close second.

I crossed the bridge and walked with a steady pace to the entrance. One ducks under the gas chamber's claustrophobic ceiling. The so-called shower room is a bit confining, but I stood there for a few moments to allow the French tourists time to move on and took in the eerie feel.

A sanitary-white clean room separates the gas chamber from the ovens. Its original purpose wasn't clear but now gives the visitor just a moment to collect himself before marching back into hell.

One step into the cremation room refilled my eyes with tears. A Frenchman videoed the room so I hid from his frame, leaned against the red brick windowsill and took in the still air of death.

'Prisoners were hanged from here,' reads a sign in English. It was suspended from a wooden beam that would easily support the weight of a limp, dying body.

The Frenchman left the room, but my tears didn't. A few minutes of privacy let my emotions flow from my eyes. I felt a strange combination of sadness and rage as I looked around the room.

'This is why I'm a photographer,' I said aloud. It seemed terribly trite, but there it was for what it's worth. I didn't walk away a changed man, but I settled into a solid resolve.

Behind I left the remnants of a beaten society driven to cleanse itself of impurity. It manifest in a death camp-turned museum lined with cement soldiers and 50-foot trees wintered bare of leaves.

The gates sat open allowing all who visit Dachau to leave on their own schedule. On their own schedule.

I'll never understand the cruelty of some men.

- Rich