Back to Blighty

Haven't done any posting in November, because we've been in Bavaria and Austria for the last two weeks. Great trip, enjoying all the usual activities of that part of the Continent. The Tirol, all the fantastic scenery, the Königschlossen, Kirchen und Klosteren. And then there are the attractions of München- wonderful musems, and der Hofbräuhaus (as well as Bräuhausern too numerous to mention).
And then there was the KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau. We'd never been to a concentration camp before, although a tour in 2003 was supposed to include an excursion to Mauthausen. Dachau is not to be missed if you're in the neighborhood. Even if it were not for the ability to walk around the whole rest of the site, the museum (in the former "maintenance" building) would be worth the trip up. Just take the S-Bahn from Munich to Dachau, walk across the street from the Bahnhof to the main Dachau bus stop, and get on the #726 bus, which is clearly labeled "KZ Memorial."
But the rest of the site, the entire former camp, is still there. A cold rain fell the whole time we were there; a perfect atmosphere for Dachau. The barracks were torn down after the war (two have been reconstructed), but the concrete foundations of all the others, with a numbered memorial for each, are still laid out in two orderly rows, like the jaw of some hideous giant whose teeth have been extracted. The memorial is all very neat, orderly, and efficient- and it is this simple effect that conveys -as nothing in the museum could do- how the Nazis applied that same Teutonic efficiency to the 30,000 recorded dead, plus the unknown thousands who died at Dachau of things like "Special Treatment" (a small-caliber bullet in the head). Admission to the camp is completely free. Touring the camp is not easy, but I emerged from the experience believing it was a necessary thing for me to have done.