Trip to Germany - Day 4

 Day 4 Parkstein and Flossenbürg

Today we went a couple of places. The first was Parkstein. The first thing you see coming in town is a little yellow church on top of a really tall hill.  All the buildings are really close together and the roads are narrow. The town is built around and on this steep hill leading up to the church. It was cold and windy walking up to the church. The church is built on top of some ruins which used to be castle. We went down the hill on the other side where we found out that this really tall hill is actually a volcano. The rock formations are really cool. I really liked this tiny town. Tristan was ready for nap time so Dana gave us some instruction and she went home while we headed over to Flossenbürg.

In Flossenbürg the first thing we saw were some "hobbit homes" as Dana called them. As you pull up here there are just doors in the hill, some seem older than others. One actually had a date over the door. These were wine cellars at some point. We then headed over to and admired the cemetery. We will have to look up there burial traditions, because there was not enough room between the headstones to actually bury someone. In addition, there were not a lot of years on the headstones, so it was hard to tell how old the cemetery was. All the stones look new.

Then we took the trail up to the castle ruins. It was cool to go see all the walls. The oldest walls were built in 1100. Then there was some built in 1200, then 1500. From the top we could see forever.  The girls loved running around, exploring, and climbing higher and higher.

After the castle ruins we headed over to the concentration camp. Flossenbürg KZ was built in 1938 at first as a place to house Career Criminals and Political prisoners. We learned some interesting things about the concentration camp. It was right in town. I kind of expected it to be in the middle of no where. In the visitor center (located in the old laundry building) there was references to city council meetings where they talked about the land and where the building would be. The town liked the idea of it being built there because it would mean a lot of jobs in building the camp, feeding these criminals, and provide labor that worked in the granite quarry down the road. It was like a boost to the economy. As time went on, the type of prisoners, and what constituted political and anti-party prisoners changed of course. By the end of the war, there was far more racial prisoners than political. They have made an amazing memorial there.

While there, I was uncomfortable at first. We ended up going through the visitors center the backwards. So I wasn't sure if we were allowed to be there. But we passed by the welcome desk and the lady there didn't ask us to leave, so I felt better about it all. We talked to the girls about how it was a prison. They took lots and lots of people there. Some were there because of their beliefs. Some were there because they were considered criminals. Some were there because people didn't like them. They didn't treat them nicely. They did mean things. A lot of people died. The girls kept saying it was spooky there. Naomi pointed out a picture of a person laying on the ground with a big hole in his head. She didn't understand and asked me what was on his head. I pulled her away from the picture and told her simply that they didn't do very nice things to people and a lot of people died. That probably wasn't the best thing to do in that situation, but we can get into the other details when she gets older.

We saw a bratwurst stand at the entrance. We thought that would be really cool to eat there after we wandered around for a bit. So after we were done we left to go get the bratwurst we saw before. But by the time we got there they were closed. We came to the conclusion that they stayed open for the tour buses that left right after we got there. We will have to find another one later in the trip. 

As a general rule we have noticed that a lot of businesses are open at different times. The craft store we visited didn't open till 1 pm. Most grocery stores, delis etc, are only open till 7 or 8. Food places close at 6 or 7. There are very little to no fast food places. McDonalds is like a cafe. People go there to relax and stay and sit for a while.

After getting back to Dan and Dana’s house, we relaxed and had a great dinner that Dana’s sister made.