When I ask about Dachau, the young rotund woman with rosy cheeks at the front desk of my modest hotel takes a map from the counter and draws me a guide. She has done this before. Is it far? No, no. Just about 20 minutes. She speaks impeccable English. I want to make myself amiable because I am here, in Munich, alone. But the fact that I don’t speak German complicates my mission.
 
 

 
The Dachau Concentration Camp is just a stop on a normal bus route. It’s awful. It’s awful for the people who live here, who I saw going home with their groceries, retrieving their children from daycare or going out for a beer at a nearby pub. It’s a constant blow to be the host of this memory.

The residents on the bus don’t appear to notice the swarm of tourists. Their faces are blank as if all of this were a part of their routine. Has it ceased to annoy them? At some point you have to build a dam in the mind, I thought. Otherwise, how could anyone live here? But if you do live here, how can you ignore the significance of this place?

Suddenly I see myself and the other tourists. We are craning our necks to get a better look out of the windows, wondering if we were there yet.

 

 
 
 
 
 
Iron gates open wide to take in the throngs of visitors brandishing cameras, jostling with an energy that seems ill fitting considering that we are in a concentration camp. A large visitors’ center houses a cafeteria and an information room where the most cordial English-speaking Germans will explain anything you ask about.

We walk down a pebbled path, hopscotch over the puddles and then we pass thorough a large gate, the prison gate. A barren field stretches before us, too great for my eyes to take in at once. I turn to my right. A row of first floor houses that look beach cabins.

I walk into the first building next to the gate. This is where the visitors had their first look-over. Here they were dispossessed of their belongings and given their uniforms. This row of buildings has been converted into a museum with black and white pictures