David's first footsteps in Germany

Funny, the things that come to mind while traveling. My dear friends, Jr and Malia, have a beautiful son who's already received a good dose of cycling propaganda. I think of Evan's muscular baby thighs every time I see a department store selling bicycle shorts and jerseys for 5-year-olds (only in Germany).

We biked from the Czech Republic to Dresden. It was hot, muggy and a bit buggy. We stopped for the night at a campground in some town about 30 miles south of the German border. As we rode through, we noticed the place was filled with large, and largely abandoned, buildings. The town itself was ringed by massive walls and a deep moat, and I noticed a cemetery with a towering cross and a large Star of David. A bit unusual, but many towns have some monument to the war and to their extinct Jewish population.

In the morning, we went to the center of town to investigate. It turns out that this town of Terezin, the whole town, was a concentration camp--now preserved as the "Museo Ghetto." Many thousands of people were interned there, to be worked to death, killed by starvation and disease or shipped to the extermination camps in the East. At one point, the Nazi government bowed to international pressure and let the German Red Cross and the International Red Cross visit this "Jewish Resettlement Camp." In preparation for the visit, three quarters of the people in the overcrowded camp were sent off to their deaths, by train to the East. Everything was cleaned, down to scrubbing the rocks. Clothes were mended. Posters of concerts and plays were printed and plastered around the town. As the investigators arrived, the concert halls were filled with people and told to clap. The musicians took a bow as if a concert had just finished, and this is what the investigators saw, without a single note being played. As soon as they left, food was literally taken from the mouths of the prisoners.

I am still stupified by the dedication the Nazi government had to this singular idea, "Solving the Jewish problem." Not the happiest place to wake up to, but an important piece of the history which hangs over Europe like a dark cloud.

Maybe it is important to reflect on the mixed feelings in Europe, as we stayed in Dresden with the four German cyclists we crossed paths with in Turkey. They finished their trip to Damascus and met up for a slide show the night we rolled into town--late, of course, and soaked from a rain shower. Everyone was extremely kind and generous to us both, and we stayed with Hagen (on the far left) for two nights.

Dresden has a beautiful center, remarkably restored after the Anglo-American bombing of the city. Bicycling, beer gardens, and paddle sports. Yet another city where it would be easy to stop for a while longer, or forever.