Carmelites to the left of him...

I should have pointed out that a couple of weeks ago I was featured on the website of the British Province of Carmelites. You can read it here, along with a horrible photo of me after I'd received the Brown Scapular.

The story rather ominously concludes with the line,

We hope to follow Roy's progress in the year ahead through news items on this website, particularly his reflection on the Carmelites who lived and died in Dachau.

So I really ought to start talking about Carmelites.

I got to know the Carmelites, a Roman Catholic Order of Friars, Nuns and Lay people, while at University in York. In many ways I am the person I am today thanks to their time, patience and presence, and they continue to challenge the way I live and think with their simple message of silence and contemplative living. They were quite struck by my placement at Dachau, not least because some of their brothers were interred here during the worst periods. Dachau was the central camp for geistlichen, religious prisoners who had opposed the Nazi regime in their respective countries. Among them were two Carmelites, Hilarius Januszewski and Titus Brandsma, who would later be beatified by the Catholic Church. Many of the brothers knew personally of Br. Raphael Tijhuis, who lived at their international college in Rome for over thirty years and who was haunted by his Dachau nightmare for the rest of his life.

The Carmelites are indeed still here. The Discalced Carmelite community of the Karmel Kloster Heilig Blut (of the Holy Blood) was established in 1964/65 and continue to pray for reconciliation through a life of prayer and solitude. I popped in for Non, a prayer of the Hours at 3pm, the other day and had a chat with the sister running the shop, in which you can buy rosaries and books looking at Dachau from a spiritual perspective. She seemed very pleased with the Carmelite connection!

Afterwards, I bought a new set of rosary beads. In the rush to pack I forgot to bring my York ones, which were on the altar at my reception into the Church two and a half years ago. I have been touched by Br Raphael's memoirs, in which he talks often of how he missed his rosary beads and risked a severe beating to pray the rosary while working on the Plantation opposite the camp.

It makes me wonder if I should try praying it more often while I'm here. Perhaps it would be appropriate to exercise that right denied to so many.

Small World

I really need to start talking a bit more about the memorial site. As you have probably guessed by now, my office is in the Protestant Church of Reconciliation, which was consecrated in 1967 by the Revd. Martin Niemöller, the renowned peace activist. He spent the early days of the Nazi regime relatively quietly, and some of his comments are seen to be anti-semitic. However, as time went on he became increasingly antagonistic and was interred in Sachsenhausen and Dachau Concentration Camps as a 'Prominenter' from 1937 through to liberation in 1945. After the war he helped to initiate the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt, prepared by the German Protestant Church (EKD) in October 1945, and worked as a peace activist for the rest of his life.

I say all this because today, his son came in to play the Organ. He is in his late 70s/early 80s and apparently comes regularly to play in the Church his father inaugurated. He's a very nice gentleman as well, rather quiet but very friendly. It turns out that he used to go on holiday to Frinton on Sea, literally ten minutes drive from Walton on the Naze, where my family has spent almost every holiday since the mid 1990s. Small world. Then, in impeccable English, he said "Frinton is considered very posh.". Once again, spot on.

Martin Niemöller is best known for a poem he is credited with writing after the war. The exact wording is debated and has been misappropriated and manipulated by all sorts of political groups, but this is the text most often accepted and the one Niemöller himself preferred:

First they came...

"First they came for the Communists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me,

and by then there was no-one left to speak up."

Uh-oh!

I had my first KZ dream last night. This is a phenomenon made known to me by the experiences of previous volunteers, that as one works with the memories of pain and suffering for long enough they begin to pervade the subconsciousness to such an extent that you cannot stop thinking about them. It wasn't a Dachau specific dream; I just had the clear feeling when I woke up that I had been interred somewhere, was in captivity and was slowly being starved/beaten to death.

Pleasant, eh!. I know it's a perfectly normal part of the process of working with the KZ but it's still a little disconcerting to know that there will be psychological effects.

In lighter news, I've finally signed up to a language course in Munich Volkshochschule, the community college. I'm seriously considering a dance course, just for the thrill of trying something different, and it's a decision between 'contemporary dance' and Ballet for beginners. Something tells me my physique isn't really up to Ballet, but I will definitely give the contemporary dance class a go. There's even a weekend workshop in a couple of months time that teaches you the Michael Jackson Thriller dance. I. Am. So. There!.

More on OKTOBERFEST

It is everywhere at the moment. There is live coverage of 'Wiesn' every day from about 2pm on Munich TV, and the number of visitors to the KZ Gedenkstaette has increased in the last week. I'm sitting in the office during Praesenzdienst and there are so many more people coming into the Church this week than last.

I said on Thursday that this year there is an historic 'Wiesn' as well as the normal one. Most people have only started wearing 'Tract' (traditional dress) to Wiesn in the last twenty years or so, encouraged by young people investing in what are apparently very comfortable walking trousers. They are very expensive- even a basic pair in C&A can easily set you back €100- so before people try it on; no, I am not going to buy Lederhosen.

One of the highlights for me was a chance to watch some traditional Volkstanzen, Bavarian dances. Accompanied by alpine yodels and plenty of brass instrumentation, the men slap their thighs and their shoes while the women twirl around. OK, that's a very basic description that insults the hard work put into these dances, but it looks amazing.

Before we left on Tuesday Irina and I very quickly popped in to the Paulaner tent, one of the biggest on site. It was fantastic and, although I had only had one beer, I had enough dutch courage to join in with a Schlager-tastic version of 'Sweet Caroline'. Neil Diamond would have been so proud...

Herr; es ist Zeit...

...so goes the opening line to Rainer Maria Rilke's Poem Herbst (Autumn), and he's right- it is about time too! I swear in the last twenty four hours the temperature has dropped by ten degrees centigrade, kicking us into Autumn. It seemed like a fitting way to end what was a rather morbid tour of Dachau yesterday afternoon. I was taking part in a guided walk along the 'Way of Remembrance', between Dachau station and the memorial site. The route roughly corresponds with the route that the train line took in the 1940s, and by the roadside stand info-boards with pictures of trains carrying people like cattle. Today, it is a lovely cycle path along which I ride regularly when heading into work.

It has not been difficult to settle into life in the town of Dachau. I know that it has been here for longer than Munich, that for all but twelve years of its history the town has been thriving on the fertile lands that surround it, and at the turn of the century the town heaved with some of Germany's best known artists. Yet really I forget that the whole town would have known about the concentration camp. The "Fruehlingstrasse" has my favourite kebab vendor in town. During the 1930s was renamed "Adolf-Hitler-Strasse" and a few doors down from my kebab place was a bar that was popular with the SA.

I remember before I left York somebody asked me, "How can people live [in Dachau] after all that happened during the war?". The answer is, quite easily. Titus-Brandsma-Weg is a small street with houses that, from the bedroom windows, have a clear view of the memorial site. These buildings were built well after the war and, quite possibly, after the 1960s and the development of the site as a memorial to the victims. In the 1980s the Commandant's villa along what is now the "Strasse des KZ Opfers" was demolished. On that spot these days is a basketball court for the local residents.

Some would say that ultimately this is a triumph for goodness, that the fact life goes on normally here after such barbarity is a fitting tribute for those whose normality was cruelly stolen from them. As with many things here, I reserve my judgement for when I have lived here a little longer and understand what it is to be a Dachauer.

The obligatory 'OKTOBERFEST!' post

Well it had to happen eventually. On Tuesday, the Rev. Bjoern Mensing and his lovely children took Irina and I to Oktoberfest, basking in unseasonally good weather. As we got off the S Bahn, it was clear that to get there you simply follow the long line of 'Tract'-clad Bavarians off for a great time. Seriously, I felt really quite underdressed!

I had always imagined Oktoberfest, or the Wiesn, to be a few huge Beer tents full of old men with impressive moustaches and a girth to match. Even though I have experienced an Oktoberfest before, it was on a smaller, provincial scale and had fewer people in traditional dress. All I can say is, it is huge. Absolutely huge. Like one of those carnivals that comes to your town's one green area every bank holiday, times twenty.

As it is the 200th anniversary of the first Oktoberfest, which was to celebrate the marriage of King Ludwig I and Theresa of Bavaria, there is a special historic section this year with traditional dances, costumes, fairground rides and even a mock-horse race!

Photos to follow!

Working with the Past

Today, I was taken for a tour of the memorial site for the first time. In the last few days I've had the opportunity to explore the site on my own, but I had hesitated to go in the exhibition or the crematorium until this point. Klaus met us at the Besucherzentrum (visitor centre) where he began to explain the pre war history of the site. A former munitions factory during WWI, when the Nazis came to power Heinrich Himmler (then in charge of policing Munich) saw the potential of the site as a possible concentration camp. On the 22nd March 1933, the camp was opened.

We moved through the Jourhaus, the gate house most well known for the gate saying 'Arbeit macht frei', and then toward the permanent exhibition in the former Wirtschaftsgebäude, or Maitenence Building.

Though there are boards explaining the history of the site, much of the interior has been left as it would have been back when the camp was liberated; paint flakes off the walls and much of the concrete is exposed. This was where the new inmates were brought and 'processed', and I assume that this was an attempt to remind us that this building is as much a part of the site's history as any other.

Pictures of victims before their internment are everywhere. I have seen plenty of them over the years, as we all have. A gentleman in his early forties well dressed and enjoying a summers day. A woman sitting with her young children in the garden, also enjoying the sunshine. Perhaps I have seen too many of them. I am well aware each one is a life turned upside down by events of history, yet they no longer move me in the way I feel they ought to. What did move me was the pictures of medical experiments on prisoners, then the film by the Americans of piles of bodies waiting to be cremated. I still find it hard to connect the black and white images of the 1930s with that footage of the liberation of the camp.

I have now been here just over a week, and it is only now that I realise this is no longer a holiday or a 'school trip'. I suddenly feel the huge responsibility I will eventually have not just as a guide, but as a representative of the ongoing effort to remember the past correctly, no matter how painful that may be. I'm sure there will be many graces, but what affect will it have on me? How will I react to living and working day to day with these memories?

Screening of 'Menachem and Fred'

On Thursday night I was invited to a screening of the 2009 film 'Menachem and Fred', about two brothers with an extraordinary past. Heinz and Mannfred Mayer grew up in Hoffenheim, a village in Baden Wurttemburg near Heidelberg, and lived a normal life up until the beginning of the war. A Jewish family, they were deported to a concentration camp in Gurs, Southern France in 1941 where they were kept until 1942. Their parents were given the option of sending the boys to a local orphanage and, knowing well that they would quite probably never see them again, consented to let them go. The parents were eventually sent to Auschwitz where they met the same fate as thousands of others; death in the gas chambers.

In the last years of the war the brothers were separated and cared for by two different groups. Heinz was smuggled into Switzerland and was taken into the care of Orthodox Jews, while Mannfred remained hidden in France with the help of a Catholic family and an American Quaker Organisation. When the war finally ended, Mannfred had decided to emigrate to the US to find a new life and forget about the past. His brother had been thinking along similar lines, but decided instead to go to Palestine, later Israel. He changed his name to the more Jewish Menachem, while Mannfred changed his name to the less Jewish 'Frederick Raymes'. While Menachen kept his Jewish traditions alive, nurtured in the new Jewish state, Fred went to extraordinary lengths to lose his to the extent that his grandchildren have been raised Christian.

Seventy years saw the brothers have families and begin to forget the past, but in no way had they come to terms with what had happened. Mannfred had even lost his ability to speak German, his mother tongue, yet he was the one most physically moved by the experience. He kept coming back to the last words his father said to him, 'Take care of Heinz', with whom he maintained minimal contact as the years went on.

There was a post film discussion led by Rev. Björn Mensing, the main pastor at the Versöhnungskirche, in which the audience tried to grapple with the main themes of the film. Perhaps the most marked response I had to the film was a better insight into the extent to which the mind protects itself from horrible experiences. Throughout the film the brothers began to regret agreeing to be in the documentary. Menachem complained of nightmares; Fred broke down in tears on several occasions. I have often been rather critical of attempts by Germans to forget their past or justify it to themselves, as have many Germans, but the film left me wondering if, had I killed thousands of people or witnessed such atrocities, wouldn't I want to forget? Whether or not it was right, perhaps forgetting the past is the most human response to bad memories there is.

Meeting after meeting...

I've been here just over six days; it feels like longer. The last few days have involved meeting after meeting, information booklet after information booklet followed by long (if necessary) explanations of what I am to do. We had our first Teamanbesprechung on Tuesday, where I met my new colleagues at the Versöhnungskirche. All of them are extremely friendly and, thankfully, speak at a speed I can just about cope with! As it was Irina's birthday, we had cake and sparkling wine to celebrate, which isn't a bad way to start work.

There was a moment when, slightly tipsy on my third glass of wine, I walked outside and suddenly remembered I'm working at a Memorial Site. I have a feeling I'm going to have more of these moments.

Yesterday I had my first day of work at the Gedächtnisbuch (Book of Memories) project, where we discussed possible projects and avenues of work for the year. My work will most probably comprise of compiling a biography of a survivor, as well as attempting to find places in the UK that would like to host the exhibition. My first feeling when we left the office three hours later was one, I admit, of panic. Here I was about to start work in which I would probably have trouble in English, let alone in a language in which I still find it hard to communicate. All will come in time, I'm sure, though it doesn't make the work any less intimidating.

Today we were taken round the memorial site for the first time. I have already wandered among the concrete rectangles that represent the now demolished barracks, but had spent most of that time looking at how other people act on the site. There are tour groups, mostly English, discussing various aspects of the camp's life from 1933-45. There are Americans in baseball caps and checked shirts chatting to their group leaders. There are tourists posing for photos in front of the famous 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI' gates at the Jourhaus. Right now I'm more facinated by these people than judgemental. I have no idea how to act in a place where 41,500 people died; it's a question I hope to understand better as the year goes on. I'll tell you more about the tour in a couple of days, when I've had time to digest it.

First Days in Bavaria and The Day of Bureaucracy

My first days here in Dachau have gone slowly enough. The weekend saw some gorgeous weather, wonderful as we visited the town of Dachau and then of course Munich (photos to follow!). Both had street parties on with some fantastic live music, including a Lederhosen-clad rock group covering the Monkees. The amount of Lederhosen at these events is actually quite surprising. During the seminar we discussed the stereotypes we bring to different countries and how they often turn out not to be true, but in this case I cannot deny it- the Bavarians love their Lederhosen. They even sell them in C&A, which went bust in the UK about a decade ago but here clearly survives on the back of sales of cost effective leather trousers for all occasions.

I digress. Monday arrived with a change in the weather, probably because nature recognised today would be the day of German bureaucracy. If there is one sound that sums up Germany, it is the sound of computer keys tapping away, followed by the 'thump' of a well-inked stamp. Though things went quickly, sorting a bank account and registering as a citizen of the town in one day is enough to try anyone's patience.

Luckily, the day was saved by our Ansprecher (mentor), Klaus. Deacon Klaus Schultz works for the Church of Reconciliation and is responsible for our welfare while we are working in Dachau. This morning he took us to see the Church, which meant seeing the memorial site for the first time. It was smaller than I had imagined it, but then again how can you imagine such a place. The ground was sodden as we headed past the Jewish memorial and the Catholic Chapel to our new office, where we discussed the work to be done. I will have a full tour of the site on Thursday, so I'm reluctant to give any first impressions until then. The last few days have been for settling in to life in Dachau town; next will be the challenge of working with the memorial site.

Endlich in der Stadt Dachau!

The last couple of weeks have been absolutely jam packed, but I'm finally in Dachau and ready to undertake my volunteer year with the Church of Reconciliation. Sorry it has taken so long to post something, I spent the first week and a half in Wünsdorf- Waldstadt, a village with a very strong history but sadly no internet access, and I will not have internet at home until the middle of October at the earliest. However, I do have some internet at work, so pictures of the last few days will follow soon.

The week in Wünsdorf- Waldstadt was a chance to get to know the other people undertaking a year in Germany with ASF, about nineteen in total from countries as diverse as the Netherlands and Azerbaijan, Russia and Israel. As the week went on, we began to share our hopes for the year, as well as our fears about things such as our rather paltry German and what it will be like to be faced with the past in such an intense way. Luckily, by the end of the week I realised I would not be alone.

The village we undertook the seminar in deserves a mention. Wünsdorf- Waldstadt is about an hour out of Berlin by train, and was a garrison town for the Kaiser's Army, then the Nazis and finally the Red Army. We had a tour of the huge bunker complex underneath the town, which has been left almost as it was in 1994 when the Red Army stripped it of all its worth and abandoned it.

On the 5th we also enjoyed an excursion to Berlin for the day, where among other things we lounged in front of the Reichstag building and ate at the Ufa-Fabrik. I love Berlin; I have been four times now and every time I discover something new or experience it almost entirely from a different perspective. I had a bit of time on the 9th to revist Potsdamer Platz and some of my other haunts, but more on that when I have photos!

Then on the 10th, accompanied by my new work colleage/housemate, I arrived in Dachau...