Last day in Germany

Lauren and I started in the morning with the Dachau Concentration camp. It was heartbreaking to walk through the camp, and I struggle to find words to describe the heavy spiritual presence we felt there. I found myself not knowing how to handle my own emotions - I wanted to cry, scream and look away all at once.

We spent almost two hours walking through the museum part of the camp and found ourselves learning a lot. This is an experience we will not soon forget. We were both reminded that even though this history seems so far in the past, it really isn’t, and remembering, regardless of how painful, is crucial.

The memorial reads in French, English, German and Russian: “May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933–1945 because they resisted Nazism to help unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and respect for their fellow men.”

The front gate to the camp. “Work sets you free.”

We took a long lunch to decompress and went back into town to visit a modern art museum that had some Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock pieces. The weather in Munich was becoming close to unbearable (lots of snow, rain and wind), so we were very happy to be inside.

Left: Lauren next to one our favorite Alex Katz pieces. Right: another Katz piece called “Emma 4” (bonus points if you can figure out why it’s not called “Emma 3”).

Wanting to celebrate our last night in Munich, we went out for dinner and had some fantastic food and beer to commemorate what hast been a favorite city. Lauren had black pudding and I had braised pork with potato dumplings. Both of our dishes came with lots of sauerkraut. We’d like to thank our professor Dr. Strauch for introducing us to good sauerkraut. If you don’t like sauerkraut, you haven’t had good sauerkraut, according to him!