Day 8- Sunday, May 15th

           

          As expected today was a depressing day as we visited and paid our respect to the first ever concentration camp in Dachau. We took a walking tour of the camp; the route we took through the grounds was the same that the prisoners were taken through. We started off in the administrative building and through then looked at the cells, barracks, and gas chambers. Also we were shown the security system that aligned the entire concentration camp, which consisted of electric fencing also ditches between the electric fences and the actual camp. On top of this all there were also watch towers located in various parts of the camps. Our tour guide said some prisoners purposely commited suicide while trying to escape because they said they rather die in their control then let Hitler chose when they died. After learning so much through grade school about the Holocaust, including books, short stories and many films it was pretty eye-opening to see a camp with my own eyes. There was a lot more that I got out from actually seeing a concentration camp then just learning about it. It was kind of hard to tell exactly what it was, but there was just something about being there that felt unreal. As we continued through the camp some parts were a lot more emotional than others. We got to the gas chambers and I started to tear up. It didn’t feel right there we were exactly in a place where thousands of people were actively killed. In the crematorium, prisoners were actually told they were going to take showers but then were brought to the gas chambers. We ended the tour which we walked through the center of the camp, and then followed by a film about Dachau. I thought the film did a very good job of putting everything we just experienced into perspective with the war and the Holocaust as a whole.

            After Dachau, we traveled back to the hotel to rest for a little and then had some time to work on our projects. My group met at the hotel to begin discussing out project, even thought it was a little hard since we hadn’t gone to the PPG company visit yet. We then all order Chinese food together for dinner. It was very different than American Chinese food and I have to say I still like American Chinese food better. I am very glad I tried it though it was definitely an experience. To end the night, the German students took us to this abandon factory, that has been fixed up and used for students to go out. This was just in the north part of Augsburg so it wasn’t very far, and it was very cool to see the different places they have to go out to.