GERMANY: DACHAU

 May 25, 2025

We visited Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria in 2012 and Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in Poland in 2019, so we assumed we were more or less prepared for a visit to Dachau. However, I learned that you can't actually be "prepared" to face horror on the scale of a concentration camp.

Historians believe over 1.1 million people perished in Auschwitz during its less than five years of existence, and 90,000 to 120,000 people were killed or died from the horrific conditions at Mauthausen during its seven years of operation. In contrast, "only" 41,500 or so people died in the Dachau concentration camp and its extensive subcamp system, and that was over a period of twelve years. Auschwitz-Birkenau existed primarily as an extermination center--the "final solution to the Jewish problem." Mauthausen started as a labor camp, but eventually became an extermination center as well. Dachau was a prison camp--a place in the beginning for the Nazis to intern their political opponents; then groups regarded as criminals such as Jews, Romani, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses; and finally, foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded.

We arrived in the city of Dachau by train, and I was kind of surprised that there was a city--I had only heard of the camp. A map at the station highlights "Historic Old Town," "Dachau Palace," and  ways to experience nature near the town of 50,000. The last thing on the list is a "Place of Learning and Commemoration"--the concentration camp.

We had a private guide who showed us a map of the major concentration camps in Germany itself--most of which I hadn't heard of--along with the subcamps and Aktion T-4 centers. There are so many.

Grafeneck, where our grandfather was murdered on May 21, 1940, is on the map.

It was gloomy and rainy at Dachau, appropriate weather for the experience.

The Dachau concentration camp was opened by Heinrich Himmler in 1933, the first concentration camp established by the Nazi Party and the longest to be in operation, from March 1933 to April 1945 when it was liberated by American forces.

GERMANY: MUNICH

May 24, 2025

Munich, the third-largest city in Germany (after Berlin and Hamburg), has a population of 1.6 million and is the capital of Bavaria. However, strolling around in the Old Town area (below left), we didn't feel like we were in a huge city as there is a lot crowded into a very walkable area. 

The most dominant building in the Old Town square is the neo-Gothic Neues Rathaus,  or New Town Hall (below right).

 It is called the NEW Town Hall because it replaced the 14th-century OLD Town Hall (seen below) in 1874.

The New Town Hall has an impressive 400 rooms.

But what it is best known for is its mechanical Glockenspiel, which twice a day uses 32 life-size figures to re-enact scenes from Munich's history. See my four-minute video of part of the action here.

GERMANY: MAULBRONN MONASTERY AND NYMPHENBURG PALACE

May 24, 2025

Maulbronn is a small town of 6,700 people in southern Germany about 12 miles north of Pforzheim. Legend has it that in the 12th century, wandering monks followed a mule looking for water into the valley. (The name Maulbronn means "mule fountain.") Finding a beautiful lake, the monks settled here and established a monastery. Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the monastery draws about a quarter million tourists every year.

For being so old, it is in amazing condition and is, in fact, one of the best-preserved monastic sites in Europe. It's also surprisingly large.

Half-timbered building near the entrance

Granary building, early 13th century

GERMANY: A RECEPTION, NEW (OLD) COUSINS, AND A STOLPERSTEIN CEREMONY

May 23, 2025

One of the few buildings that was restored after the February 25, 1945, bombing was the Old Town Hall. It was originally built in 1911-1912 in the Art Nouveau style but was burned out in the air raid. It was repaired and expanded in 1999-2001. A plaque on the wall states, "As a lasting reminder, the Old Town Hall commemorates the destruction of old Pforzheim." 

This is the building where there was a reception for the Stolpersteine families that we--and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of our grandfather and his first wife--had been been invited to attend. We had known our grandfather was married before he was married to our grandmother, but we knew nothing of his life with the first wife or if there were living descendants. Alex, our incredible researcher, found their names, and my brother Dave used Facebook to track them down. They too were invited to the Stolpersteine events.

It turns out there were three children of that earlier marriage, two of whom survived to adulthood, and one of whom married and had two children (born in 1948 and 1951) who would also be grandchildren of our grandfather. We met the widow of the oldest son (who died in 1981) and the second son himself, who is still living and is our half-first cousin. Between them, those two children had five children. We met three of those children, who are our half first-cousins once removed. One of them brought her 11-year-old daughter, our half first-cousin twice removed.

We got there a little early, nervously checking out every small group of people who came in. We had not seen photos of any of the relatives, and as far as we could tell, each person that entered could have been a cousin. When you don't know what you are looking for, you see similarities in every smile, every nose, every setting of the eyes.

While we waited, I admired this powerful metal relief that portrays Pforzheim's streets and buildings in the Cubist style.

GERMANY: PFORZHEIM CEMETERY, DOWNTOWN, ENZ RIVER, WALLBERG

 May 23, 2025

When we got up in the morning, we knew we had a big day ahead that involved meeting cousins we didn't know we had because our mother chose to keep their existence a secret from us, if she even knew about them (and we are pretty sure she did). The day would also include a visit to the Pforzheim cemeetery, a trip to one of the archives that our researcher used to uncover some of the information that had been in hiding for 85 years, a visit to the street where our mother and her family lived until 1945, the installation of a Stolperstein in our grandfather's honor, and more.

But since parking is an issue in Pforzheim, and since the cemetery had a big parking lot, that is where we began. We could park our two vans there and walk to our other destinations during the day, then pick up the vans at the end of the day.

A map of the cemetery at the entrance had this information: "Pforzheim's main cemetery is considered one of the most beautiful park cemeteries in southern Germany. Eighty percent of its total area of approximately 33.4 hectares (82.5 acres) is protected as a historical monument. These areas are characterized by stately tree stands and . . . garden design from the imperial era. From 1877 to 1945, the basic strcture of long avenues and numerous neatly trimmed hedges, which still characterize the cemetery today, gradually emerged.The historical fabric is still largely intact."

I love cemeteries, which I've said many times in this blog. Every grave and monument represents a life and a story, and that seems especially apparent in a cemetery as beautiful as the one in Pforzheim. If I understand correctly, plots are leased for a specific period, usually 20 to 30 years, rather than purchased outright. If the lease is not renewed, the remains are moved or cremated and the site is "recycled" for another burial. Beautiful, well-maintained gravesites are a staple of German culture. Visiting the cemetery is almost like strolling through a botanical garden. Each grave is distinct from the others around it and artfully decorated as if it is a separate room. Take a look at these examples:

GERMANY: ZWIEFALTEN

 May 22, 2025  

On our way from Grafeneck to Zwiefalten, we stopped to take a photo of a bar/inn where the Grafeneck staff came to relax, have a drink, or perhaps rent a room if overflow housing was needed. Today, this charming restaurant exhibits no evidence of its past, and I suppose it is a good example of the fact that life must go on.

Zwiefalten is a tranquil village of about 2,300 people in the Swabian region of southern Germany about 70 miles southeast of my mother's hometown of Pforzheim. The skyline is dominated by the twin towers of the Abbey of Our Lady of Zwiefalten, a former Benedictine monastery founded in 1089.

In 1812 part of the property became a lunatic asylum and then later a psychiatric hospital.

Zwiefalten State Hospital and Sanitorium was the last place my grandfather was held before he was transported to Grafeneck. Of the 10,654 people gassed at Grafeneck, more than 1,000 came from Zwiefalten. Once Grafeneck was shut down in December 1940, killings by injection continued at Zwiefalten.

This distance from Zwiefalten to Grafeneck is about 14 miles and takes just under 25 minutes to drive. Perhaps it took the gray transport busses a little longer in 1940, and certainly the patients who were passengers in the bus did not know where they were going.

We began our vist to Zwiefalten at the Württemberg Museum of Psychiatry. Apparently the psychiatric clinic at Zwiefalten is the oldest in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

GERMANY: GRAFENECK

 May 21, 2025

This post is one of the hardest ones I think I have ever written. The subject matter is difficult, and six months out, I find I am still trying to process this day's events, both those that happened in 2025 and those that occurred exactly 85 years earlier in 1940.

Everyone has heard of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, Sobibor, and other concentration camps, but I am guessing that very few Americans are familiar with Bernberg, Hadamar, Brandenburg, Hartheim, Sonnenstein, and--the one that matters most to me and my siblings--Grafeneck. Each of these were "extermination centers" that were part of the Nazi Aktion T4 program. 

Aktion T4 preceded the concentration camps extermination program, and in fact was a foundation for the killing methods used in the camps and the beginning of the systematic mass murder system that led to the Holocaust. Its goal was to rid Germany of "life unworthy of life," the mentally ill and disabled. 

A propaganda poster in the Grafeneck Memorial
Documentation Center showing a strong German trying
to "support" two mentally ill creatures and noting that
supporting a handicapped person until the age of 60
costs 50,000 Reichsmarks.

Victims were brought against their will and generally without the knowledge of their families to one of the six facilities I listed above. There they were gassed using carbon monoxide, which took about 20 minutes--a much slower process than the Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide) gas later used in the concentration camps--and their bodies were cremated. The Nazis called these "mercy deaths." Families were notified that their relative died of some randomly chosen but plausible cause, and often a container of indiscriminate ashes was sent to the family.