3/25/07 8:00pm

I am on the train again, from Munich to Berlin this time. Munich is a city that is difficult to leave. This place has made me laugh and cry during the past few days.

The night before I was biting on a golden-color roasted pork knuckle, pouring down delicious ice-cold dark beer from a one-liter jar, laughing loudly with over one thousand happy people jamming in the world-famous Hofbrauhaus beer hall in Munich.

My waiter was an adorable young man speaking broken English, but with an elegant manner. When he was taking a picture for me, he said: “You have a beautiful smile.”

“Nice try. You are hoping for a big tip, aren’t you?” I was laughing inside. Of course I didn’t say it that way. Instead, I expressed my gratitude sincerely.

A few hours later, when I was ready for my bill, my waiter asked me whether I could wait for a while until he finished his shift for the night, then just two of us could go to another bar together and have more drink.

Unfortunately, I had to turn down his invitation. “Look,” I pointed to my beer jar on the table, “I can’t even finish this!”

The waiter laughed: “I can easily finish five or six jars.”

“Wow, good for you!” I was amazed, “If I dare to finish this jar, I would fall asleep right here or someone has to call a taxi to carry me back to my hotel!”

That night, I left Hofbrauhaus with my face flushing, my eyes red, my stomach full, my body burning, my steps floating, my heart pounding, and my spirit singing.

However, today was another day, a completely different day: a day without beer but only tears.

Today I went to the Dachau Concentration Camp.

Dachau is a picturesque little town about 10 miles from Munich. On the bus to the camp, I was chatting with a group of people from Indonesia. They asked me whether I had ever visited Indonesia. I shook my head: “No, I don’t feel safe traveling there, particularly as a Chinese.”

“But there are many Chinese in Indonesia. It is very safe!” They protested.

“I am not sure about that. Wasn’t it just a few years ago when the riot against Chinese arose? I heard that many Chinese shops were robbed, many Chinese properties were set on fire, and some Chinese women were even raped. Wasn’t it true?” I challenged them.

“Yes, ” They admitted it reluctantly, “But it was in the past. It is much better now.”

But I know, racialism not only existed in the past, but also exists at present; it not only existed in Nazi Germany and Indonesia, but also exists in many places around the world. If we couldn’t learn from the past, history could repeat itself. I heard these two sentences again and again in Dachau: “Don’t forget!” “Never again!”

Dachau Camp was considered the “Academy of Terror” because it was the first Nazi concentration camp, which was set in motion in 1933 and finally liberated in 1945. Dachau was the originator, role model and training ground for the vast order of brutality that spread over half of Europe during the WWII. Together with the much larger Auschwitz, Dachau has come to symbolize the Nazi concentration camps to many people.

In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau. People were put into the camp for all kinds of reasons. I never knew before, that being homosexual could be a sufficient stand-alone reason to be thrown into the concentration camp. Wasn’t it ironical considering Ludwig II, the king of Bavaria, of which Munich was the capital, was actually a homosexual?

King Ludwig II built a trio of romantic castles – Linderhof, Neuschwanstein, and Herrenclimsee in the late 19th century. Today, Neuschwanstein, the most theatrical of the three, has become a major tourist attraction.

However, the life of King Ludwig II didn’t end up as romantically. He was declared insane and deposed by the Bavarian government in 1886. Homosexuality was one of the reasons, although not the only one, that he was certified insane in his bedroom in Neuschwanstein. Only a few days later, he and his physician were found drowned in the Starnberger See. The reason of this tragedy was never ascertained. But I tend to believe it was an assassination. You can easily find similar plots all over the Chinese history.

Being homosexual could be such a huge liability, even to a man who was as powerful as a king!

Note: this article stopped here because the train had arrived at the Berlin central station by then. It remains unfinished.

P.S. 3/29/07
I will never forget one photo I saw in Dachau. That was a huge pile of randomly placed corpses. On the top of the pile was a dead man’s body. He was lying on his back, but I couldn’t see his head or face because the body was bending backward. A thin prisoner uni???? shirt was hanging on his chest and he was completely naked from waist down.

This was not the first time I faced men’s naked bodies. Figures in classical sculpture are usually naked, including Michelangelo’s David. But this man’s body shocked me.

Only a thin layer of skin wrapped his narrow pelvis and his thighs and legs were so thin that they almost looked like part of a skeleton. But between the legs was a huge penis! To think about it, the penis might have just been a normal size. However, it looked so out of portion comparing with the rest of the skeletal body.

Who was he? How did he look like? What did he do? Did he have wife and kids? What was his favorite food and what type of outfit did he like before the years in Dachau? How much hunger and torture had he suffered before he died? Who took away the last piece of the pants from his corpse and robbed him the last slice of human dignity?

Staring at the pictures, many questions raced through my mind, and before I knew it, tears started running down my face.