ONCE  UPON A TIME

It is a time warp in the truest sense. Like someone wove the magic wand and whisked you away to the medieval times. Or someone opened a story book with the legendary opener, 'once upon a time...' and hey presto! the book comes alive and even more wonderful, you are in it. Rothenburg ob der Tauber in Bavaria has that mesmerising effect ( even on hardened souls wary of tourist traps)

It starts right from Munich when you set out on the Romantic Road. It's a long drive, made more so by a detour to the Schloss Harburg Castle, another medieval castle (11-12th century)in where else, but Harburg. From the road below the castle on a hill looks imposing and even a tad majestic. It is a drive up through one of the most scenic area. As the castle nears, there is already a sense of being transported several centuries back. It's a huge complex with a castle, prison tower, sentry walk with holes on the some walls to pour hot oil on invaders, dungeon etc. The maintenance is quite commendable and even has a pleasant surprise in store for those who pay the entry fee to walk the sentry walk - suddenly there is a very contemporary elevator that zooms you down, past the off-limit private quarters, to the ground. In plain terms apart from the views from the sentry walk wall holes, there was nothing extraordinary.  On hindsight, one should have followed the example of the mother-son duo from South Africa, who chose to skip the castle tour! For that price would have  been better spent at the open air cafe within the complex. Sigh

 

 

 

 

 

     

 

Thankfully, Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Red Fort on the River Tauber) makes you believe that all good things come to even the gullible. And in spades. It is almost like stepping through Platform 9 and 3/4 of Harry Potter series, one turn and suddenly the medieval town is bang there. It takes a very weary soul to not marvel at it. It is a fairy tale scene come alive. A magical world secreted away behind ginormous stone town walls with 42 towers. Narrow cobbled lanes, churches, half-timbered and gables houses and stores, red tiled roofs, turrets and clock towers, window boxes abloom with flowers and everything quaint could have been easily mistaken for a set-up theme park except that everything is real and authentic and genuinely ancient. And it has remained like that for centuries. Often in the more secluded and less crowded lanes you would almost expect goblins and such creatures to cross your path.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rothenburg traces its history back to 960 when the first human settlement is said to have sprung up in Detwang in the Tauber Valley. The Imperial Castle came in 1142 built by King Konrad 111. It naturally followed that another community called Rothenburg came up on the hill next to the castle. Twenty years or so later the castle was abandoned following the death of the Duke of Rothenburg, Friedrich. But Rothenburg not only survived, it thrived growing into a commercial hub because of its strategic location. In 1274 it was declared a Free Imperial city by King Rudolf of Habsburg. In the mid next century an earthquake destroyed the entire imperial castle and parts of the city. Phew! But Rothenburg overcame the natural disaster to bounce back again.

In 1544 Rothenburg gave its Catholic beliefs and went the Lutheran Protestant Reformation way. That naturally infuriated the Catholic Lord of the town, the Habsburg Emperor. There's was more in store for the city when in 1618 during the Thirty Years' War the Protestant city was occupied several times. Some more - in the early 19th century the city lost its independence after annexation to the Bavarian Kingdom. And when World War 11 began in 1945 Allied forces bombed the city. Rothenburg not only bore it all stoically but eventually developed into the fairy-tale-come-alive city that it is today.

And in a corner of Rothenburg it's Christmas throughout the year.  The Christmas-Village store and the Kathe Wohlfahrt's German Christmas Museum, in one word, is a delight. Over 30,000 traditional German Christmas decorations literally dazzle your senses.  Christmas cards through the ages, Christmas trees through  he ages; its just merry, merry days all the way. 

 

If the city is enticing, the sights from the viewpoints are equally breathtaking. The advantage of height means a sweeping panorama spread out below you of the Tauber Valley and the old town. The castle garden is another delight. The present garden is the original location of the Hohenstaufen Castle, destroyed totally by the earthquake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It doesn't take long to realise that a day trip is a mistake, Rothenburg needs to be experienced both by day and night. After the day trippers have left, after the hustle bustle has quietened down and street lamps are switched, Rothenburg assumes another dimension we learnt, romantic and yet haunting complete with a Night Watchman's Tour. It was not to be so to make up for the loss a second helping of its of its culinary trademark Snowball (Schneeballen). In brief, it is shortcrust pastry  with the strips  shaped into a ball, deep fried and doused with icing sugar (there are chocolate etc versions too). With everyone telling us that it was a must try, that's the first thing we did in Rothenburg. It was good as all sweet, crispy, deep fried stuff are. The husband said it reminded him of 'Shakarpara'  and that somehow stayed in my head. Which again is good, it will always remind me of Rothenburg.  Sweet! 

 

AND THE MUSIC DIED

All the adulthood, all the cynicism, all the professed sanity, all the control over emotions crumble. It takes one accordion enclosed in a glass case to do that. It reaches out and, dub it dramatic drivel or whatever, clutches your heart. An accordion is just another musical instrument right? Not this one. It belonged to Isia Rosmarin, a 14-year old, who went one day from being just another teenager to an inmate of the first Nazi and the most notorious Dachau Concentration Camp established on March 10, 1933. He was one of the lucky few who was liberated by US soldiers in 1945. Just how many victims perished is unlikely to be known ever.

A 20 minutes or so train ride and another short bus trip, the Camp, 16 kilometres from Munich, has been preserved as a memorial. The unspeakable horror that transpired there screams silently. It is impossible to even imagine what Satanic minds could inflict such gruesome torture on fellow beings. At one time it might have been a matter of pride for the Nazis that the Dachau Concentration Camp became the prototype and training centre for all SS organised camps.

The entrance has a gate with 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (work makes you free) at the top. Free? There is a stark difference beyond what lies within and the immediate space outside. A driveway divides the cold walls of the Camp and the tree lined mowed grass stretch on the right. The guide Matt, points out the white structure at the end, that's where the SS officers stayed. The scenic beauty acquires demonic dimensions. To the left is another grassy stretch, tree lined on one side only, and at the end of the wall a watch tower is visible.

  

 

How does one describe a tour that chills one to the core and leaves your senses etherized? Matt herds the group around; the solemn commentary continues. The Camp was set up barely five weeks after Hitler declared himself Chancellor. First came the political prisoners - the Social Democrats, the Communists. Soon, homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, Catholic priests were incarcerated. Then November 1938 onward, the Jews were marched to the Camp.

What went in the camp defies description. It became a laboratory were the inmates were guinea pigs for unimaginable Nazi experiments. What happens when humans are subjected to sudden increase and decrease in atmospheric pressures? Immerse a prisoner  in icy water. Effects of drinking seawater; effects of going on without food or water; infecting prisoners with malaria and treating them with unknown drugs; tuberculosis medical experiments; making incisions on limbs and infecting them with glass slivers, bacteria, dirt- no horrendous experiment was spared.   

Inhuman conditions, overcrowding, revolting medical experiments, unending physical and mental torture, it goes without saying, equals increasing number of near-dying inmates and high mortality rate. With cold-blooded precision a crematorium was built in 1940. Within a year it was working beyond its capacity. Two years later another crematorium with four chambers were built. It didn't matter what brutalities were inflicted on the inmates because the Hitler's edict made it clear that Dachau and other concentration camps that followed were beyond the purview of German law as applied to German citizens. Many must have prayed for death. 

 

 

      

 

Then there were the fumigation cubicles. The naked prisoners were marched into it...

  

 

Stripped of every iota of dignity and brutalised every which way, it speaks of human resilience that were and are survivors. Decades later, the horror of it all still chills one to the bones. The cells and rooms are empty; then it was hell on earth.

 

 

   

 

 

Among those who never stepped out the gate of the Camp was an Indian princess Noor-un-nisa Inayat Khan.

Till today just how many entered the gate and how many perished is not known. On record over 20,000 were listed; scores and scores more were never registered. And you wonder if there is really any justice at all.