SARAH AND TIM FIFE

WE headed to Munich. Dachau Concentration Camp, the reason for our visit to Munich, on the other hand proved to be an entirely different story.

The first concentration camp to be built by the Nazis, Dachau was, and continues to be, synonymous with the terror and horror of the Holocaust. The very name causes many people to shutter and, having stood in the enormous empty roll-call square where up to 30,000 prisoners once stood to be counted, I can see why.

We spent our first hours at Dachau making our way through yet another information-heavy (though, this time, interesting) exhibition, which gave a history of Dachau in addition to commentary on the war in general.

To be honest, there wasn’t a lot of information that was new to us but the floor-to-ceiling banners made for a confronting way to exhibit quotes and photographs and simply being in the space was eerie enough all on its own.

Beyond the formal exhibit, we were able to visit a barracks which has been recreated with bunks, bathrooms and lockers. Unlike what one might expect, the barracks were immaculate.

This reflects the Nazis order that the prisoners quarters always remain spotless, and so much as a smudge on the polished wood floors or bed spread not pulled tight would result in public torture. Outside the barracks we walked down the long path in between outlines where the other barracks once stood.

Having been torn down after the war, those responsible for maintaining the camp have elected not to rebuild them but rather to create concrete foundations in their 32 places -– they are simply covered in gravel and are empty save for markers which indicate the original building number.

Despite having never been used (for reasons not entirely understood), walking through the camp’s gas chamber was unnerving — in the way where my mind simply doesn’t allow me to process what “could be” — and standing in front of the crematorium made my stomach churn a bit from the combination of disgust and tremendous sadness.

But, for me, walking on the path between the barracks felt even more intense and chilling. I don’t know whether it is intentional, or just convenient, but the entire roll-call square and path between the barracks are covered in gravel and it felt as though I was walking on millions of stones which had been left in memory of those who suffered there.

Luckily not all of our Jewish experiences in Germany were as intense and depressing – both the Berlin Jewish Museum and the Jewish Museum of Munich were informative and uplifting.

I could rave about the things that we saw in both museums -– the museum in Munich is much smaller and featured two temporary exhibits as well as a permanent exhibition with interactive multimedia that was very interesting.

In addition to some general artefacts (Shabbat candlesticks and torah covers, etc), they also had a timeline and an interactive exhibit on Munich’s Jewish history, and a wall covered in a comic strip reflecting a Holocaust survivors’ experience of returning to Germany years later.

In addition, there is an area where seven pieces from the museum’s collection (chosen by seven different staff members) are displayed with their explanation as to why they’ve chosen those specific items.

The items themselves range from the “Aliyah” board game to an ancient prayer book and are lovely, but the really interesting thing is to read why each person has chosen the particular piece and to see what questions they raise.

For instance, one of the museum directors questions whether the museum can rightfully own the piece for although they purchased it legitimately, it should perhaps belong to the descendents of the original owners who died in the Holocaust.

This line of questioning left me thinking about pieces that we see in museums, how they got there and also the importance of using artifacts as part of a narrative versus returning items to the families of their original owners – and what are the implications of each?

The Berlin Jewish Museum is must larger and includes an extensive, interactive and information-heavy exhibition on “2000 years of Jewish history.” In addition to this “glance” at Jewish history, the museum has a couple of other features worth mentioning.

It’s worth mentioning that the Berlin Jewish Museum was created by Daniel Libeskind in a zigzag formation using angles and slanted floors.

He also included a number of “voids” – spaces in-between hallways in the museum which are empty and go all the way to the ceiling (or, in some cases, to the sky) as a way to symbolize people, communities, contributions, Jewishness -– all of which are missing from the world as a result of the Holocaust.

You enter the exhibition on the ground floor consisting of three criss-srossing hallways, the “Axis of Holocaust”, the “Axis of Emigration” and the “Axis of Continuity”.

The Axis of the Holocaust is a long hallway featuring letters and artifacts from Jewish communities during World War II and, at the end, is a large, heavy door.

On the other side is the Holocaust Tower, which is simply a triangular cavern, 24 metres tall, completely made of concrete and without any heat or insulation and with only a sliver of natural light.

It is a space in which you feel a tremendous sense of loneliness and uncertainty and, as I forced myself to stand in this dungeon for a minute, I could hear Joseph singing, “close every door to me, hide all the world from me, bar all the windows and shut out the light…”

There was one more exhibition at the Berlin Jewish Museum that really stuck with me called “Fallen Leaves”. This exhibition is in a long two-storey high hallways just beyond the temporary exhibit area and, while we didn’t know that it was there, we could hear something strange as we approached, like glass being put through a recycling machine.

As we turned the corner, we saw thousands of heavy metal disks with childlike faces cut out of them, just laying on the ground like fallen leaves. They were beautiful – simple, modern, emotional – and strangely, the artist intended people to walk on them.

At first it felt disrespectful, to walk on images of faces, but something compelled me to take a few steps and I winced as I felt my weight coming down on the metal and making it shift on the ground. I stepped back, closed my eyes for a couple of minutes and just listened to the sounds echoing in this long, dimly-lit chamber.

It actually sounded like a train rambling along – when there were only one or two people walking on the faces, the train was moving slowly, as if to say “this thing cannot move forward with only the efforts of only a couple of people”.

But then a few people starting walking around and it began to pick up speed … and, finally, a couple of reckless, young people got involved -– running around with gusto, unaware of the rules of engagement — and the thing really started clattering.

It sounded like a train racing down a railway and I could almost hear the crash — the pain and the screams. The destruction felt inevitable.

OK, so maybe the museum experiences weren’t entirely uplifting but they were certainly deeply-moving, thought-provoking and very much worthwhile.

Sarah and Tim Fife, of Sydney, are living their dream by travelling around the world for a year. Their journey is taking them through Asia, Europe, Israel and the US.