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So, yesterday was our last day in Margetshöchheim. I asked Dr. Ostrander what was on the itinerary for the day. He replied with “feed the ducks”. Since we had accumulated massive amounts of bread each day that we weren't using, the practice was to feed the ducks of the Main river the surplus bread. I seemed to enjoy it the most out of the whole group. It was interesting to see the ducks fight each other and pull feathers out of the other ducks' collections of feathers.

The day was supposed to be spent packing. I really didn't pack and just wasted the day doing… I don't remember; it must not have been really important. However, that evening, Dr. Ostrander had arranged to send us over to Veitshöchheim to eat at one of the restaurants along the riverfront. While this was all happening, it was raining. The restaurant that we were at was an outdoor restaurant, but it was on the second floor with a roof over our heads. All that I can say about the food is that it was probably the best meal that I've ever had in my life: the salad, the entrée, the drink and the dessert. After the meal, we all just sat around the tables talking to each other for longer than we actually ate. Our chef even came up and chatted with us in good English.

That night, I was really in no mood to go to bed. So, I had a few sodas to stay awake. However, while I was in the mood to pull an all-nighter and then sleep in the van/box the next day, everyone else was all too eager to get to sleep. So, I found myself packing at 2:00.

I woke up around some time in the morning. I fed the ducks one last time. Then, we all packed the vans/boxes to the ceiling full of bags. We really didn't waste any time in Margetshöchheim since we had a full day ahead of us. So, we got inside the boxes and headed for Austria.

Before we went to Austria, we made a stop in Munich. Specifically, we stopped in one of Munich's more infamous suburbs: Dachau. Dachau is pretty much famous for one reason and one reason only: the Nazi concentration camp in the city. While the Nazis had established several extermination camps in Poland later during the war, Dachau was established immediately after the Nazis came to power, and it wasn't an extermination camp; it was merely a smaller work camp. However, it was the only camp that remained open during the entire twelve-year Nazi regime. As we walked into the camp, we were greeted with the same metal gate that had greeted all of the countless victims that had come through the gates some sixty years before with the motto of the entire Nazi extermination system placed in the door: “Arbeit Macht Frei” which translates into English as “Work makes [you] free”. It was here that I took my first picture of the trip.

The first part of the camp that we visited was the museum located in the main building of the camp. Of the entire camp, this was the location that I appreciated the most. The museum offered a lesson in history of the camp in specific and the entire Holocaust in general. I took longer than the others reading the materials provided for us. After the museum, we walked took a quick walk through the barracks. After that, we went to the most infamous spot of all: the crematoriums. I had seen pictures of these all the time through my elementary school obsession of reading everything and anything related to World War II, but I had never seen the real thing. Still, my feelings were the same then and the same now: disgust. While walking through the same building, I actually stood in a gas chamber that looked as though it was being disguised as a shower room. However, at Dachau, the gas chambers were not used for mass killings. Rather, it was seldom used for a few executions of camp members that had stood out as nuisances. The infamous mass killings occurred at the camps in modern-day Poland such as Auschwitz and Treblinka.

After we exited the crematoriums, we walked into a little grove in the woods that had grown around the camp as a sort of memorial garden. We then pulled out our copies of Night by Elie Wiesel. What we were supposed to do at this point was to read a certain passage of the book that stood out to us. I choose a passage from the preface:

On the last day of the Jewish year, the child was present at the solemn ceremony of Rosh Hashanah. He heard thousands of these slaves cry with one voice: “Blessed be the name of the Eternal.” Not so long before, he too would have prostrated himself, and with such adoration, such awe, such love! But on this day he did not kneel. The human creature, outraged and humiliated beyond all that heart and spirit can conceive of, defied a divinity who was blind and deaf. “That day, I had ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, and God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone—terribly alone in a world without God and without man. Without love or mercy. I had ceased to be anything but ashes, yet I felt myself to be stronger than the Almighty, to whom my life had been tied for so long. I stood amid that praying congregation, observing it like a stranger.”

And I, who believe that God is love, what answer could I give my young questioner, whose dark eyes still held the reflection of that angelic sadness which had appeared one day upon the face of the hanged child? What did I say to him? Did I speak of that other Jew, his brother, who may have resembled him—the Crucified, whose Cross had conquered the world? Did I affirm that the stumbling block to his faith was the cornerstone of mine, and that the conformity between the Cross and the suffering of men was in my eyes the key to that impenetrable mystery whereon the faith of his childhood had perished? … We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Eternal is the Eternal, the last word for each one of us belongs to Him. This is what I should have told this Jewish child. But I could only embrace him, weeping.¹

We visited some of the chapels that had been set up on the camp since it had been turned into a memorial site. Dayton told us not to overthink anything while we visited the chapels like he would normally do if we were visiting an art gallery or a museum. However, the place was crowded with a bunch of people in uniforms. It turns out that they were members of a German-Austrian Catholic fraternity that had come to honour the memory of members of the fraternity who died at Dachau. Besides them, we met a Jewish pilgrim from Georgia. He helped me translate some of the German and Hebrew that was on the memorial plaques. We had a brief discussion on theology. He told us that Dachau was not an easy place to visit. I told him that it was not my idea of a good time.

Then, we left Dachau. Our destination was Schloß Mittersill in the Austrian Alps. Schloß Mittersill is a castle that was converted into some sort of Christian theological academy/retreat in Austria. The fact that it was established in Austria is significant since Austria was neutral during the Cold War. Therefore, students could come from Eastern Europe to study theology in Austria. For us, Schloß Mittersill is our home for the next week. I'm thrilled about the fact that the place has a full laundry service (€8.00/load, but Dr. Ostrander is paying for it), wireless Internet (€0.50/15 minutes which is quite expensive so I won't be on 24/7), a cafeteria (which had absolutely delicious food) and a “café” (which we later found out wasn't a café at all but a pub). It's pretty freakin' sweet to be put up in a freakin' castle. On my way back to my room, I actually got lost! There's a church service tomorrow, so I need to sleep.

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1. Elie Wiesel, Night, trans. Stella Rodway (New York: Bantam, 1960), x-xi.