Another day on the road...

1/15/10
Nordhausen, Germany
Mittelbau-Dora Museum

Casie: 7:15 AM is early. 7:15 AM is when Becca and I began our trek to Nordhausen to visit the concentration camp and cave site where the German SS officers worked on the V1 and V2 rockets. Most of the barracks had been destroyed but we got to explore the cave and see remains of the projects.

Working conditions at the camp: 35-40 degree F all year around in cave and 6 cans for bathroom use for many thousand workers, no doctors to treat prisoners, execution/infractions for many things even greeting an officer in a different manner.

Again, this site was eye opening as the others. It’s fascinating and mentally exhausting to see how the war affected many different cultures and people with every new site we approach.

Becca: Today was a long day. We got up earlier than we anticipated in order to drive out to yet another concentration camp. This one was unique in that it was inside of a mountain, so needless to say, was really cold. Once again, a pattern here in Europe: the cold. The Dora camp housed men who worked on Nazi weapons systems and was very much a technologically minded camp. Someone Americans may recognize who was involved with this camp was Werner von Braun. Remember the hero figure in October Sky? The rocket man? Von Braun was associated with the SS (Nazi officials) during World War II and came over to the United States after the war was over, brought over safely by the government so he could work for them. He went on to start NASA. Strange to think of the connections some of our institutions have. History can be funny that way.

The cave itself was really eerie, and while it seemed warmer compared to the icy cold outside, it was still incredibly cold. And we had winter coats on. That never ceases to amaze me that these people worked and lived (and often died) in these conditions with hardly any form of protection from the weather. I wouldn’t last a day. We loaded back onto the bus and finished the trek to Arnhem…which we did nothing in. Our hotel is a couple of miles outside of the town, and we have no way of making it there. So a night in it is. I think we stayed here so that we wouldn’t spend a night in Amsterdam, but that is just me thinking out loud. And knowing some of the people on our trip, that is probably a wise decision. Better to have 40 tired and slightly bored students so up to the bus at 7:30 tomorrow morning than to have half the group missing from “recreational activities” the night before. Off to Anne Frank’s House tomorrow.