Day 10: Day of Depression

Sunday we had to be ready by 8:30am, so getting up was a little difficult. We were all ready waiting outside, but the bus ended up being 30 minutes late, so really we could have slept in. But we headed toward Strutthof Concentration camp about an hour away. The bus ride put me to sleep every single time we were traveling. I kept banging my head on the window. We got to Strutthof and the area was beautiful. We were at about 2500 feet in elevation, a little less than Boone. But it was so pretty with mountains in the distance. It was sad to think about all the horrible things that happened there in such a pretty area of land.

This concentration camp was mainly a work camp. It was occupied by all male prisoners. There were not as many Jews that went to that camp. Most of the prisoners were there because they were political prisoners, homosexuals, jehovah’s witnesses, common criminals, etc. They all wore triangles that were colored according to the reason they were there. If there was a bar above the triangle then they were repeat offenders. Jews did wear yellow stars. The concentration camp mainly worked people in the quarry. They did have a gas chamber off site and a crematorium. They had doctors who performed medical experiments on the prisoners as well.

The museum was layed out well, in one of the former housing for prisoners. We got to see the crematorium, which was hard to view. All of us were depressed when we were leaving.

Thankfully, we headed to a neighboring town Obernai to get lunch. We ate Turk Doner Kababs. It was really good, a lot like a Yiro but on more bread. We had to scarf the food down to get back on the bus in a hurry and then head to our wine tasting. The winery showed us their cellar, which was awesome. They were absolutely huge and held thousands of litters of wine. They also showed us a small museum of tools they used to use to bottle the wine and cut out corks. Then we got to have our tasting. We got to try 5 white wines: two Rieslings, 1 Pinot Gris, 1 Muscat, and 1 Guw (i dont know how to spell it)… They were all really good, but I definitely like the dryer wines. I got two bottles and two glasses to take home. The wine tasting definitely improved everyone’s moods.

We headed back to the Chateau after that and by the time we were back we only had an hour until dinner. None of us were really that hungry but we still tried to eat the food they had for us so we wouldn’t be hungry later. Taylor and I went on a walk around the grounds for a while after dinner to wind down. I got to skype with Ian finallllyyyyy! It was a really good day.