The waitress at the beer garden in Munich where Theresa and I have just had lunch clears her plate with a baffled expression and mutters in German under her breath. Luckily, my brother Ludwig is happy to translate for the etiquette breeching foreigners. Apparently, Theresa has sweet mustard on her plate (which she was dipping her pretzel in) too close to her main course of the salad and goat cheese and the cheese and mustard had mixed together on the plate.
“Mustard and Cheese – THAT’s a first.” The waitress had observed in German before moving away to assist more Bavarian oriented customers.
Theresa and I had been enjoying a few days off from the steady stream of concentration camps and meetings. As of yesterday, we had driven over 2000 kilometers through Poland, Germany a
nd Austria aided by a temperamental GPS who seems incapable of guiding us to any hotel that does not involve obscure one way side streets and construction obstacles. In Dresden, Munich and Vienna, we had taken to simply parking the car and taking a taxi to avoid both the “Recalculating” and the swearing.
Our days as a tourist in Dresden and Munich come to an end with our arrival at Dachau and it is back to business as usual, if one can call spending time immersed in the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust business as usual. More than one friend has sent me an email saying “Have a good day at Auschwitz!” and then immediately realized the contradiction this work brings. We have a good day at Dachau though there are less historical sites intact than I originally thought, so our photography is limited to a few key areas. Since I spent a week here researching just two months ago, we focus entirely on the outdoor barracks and prison areas. At Dachau, the SS manage to combine cruelty and efficiency as evidenced by a sign in the crematorium, which hosts four large brick ovens.