Chapter Seventeen: Trip to Dachau and the Wonder of Young children

Children are astounding but especially young children. Their inexperience and blunt honestly sometimes shock us, but this can be a good thing from time to time. Young children are NOT innocent from selfishness; they quickly learn all kinds of manipulation and stall tactics. But, their innocence from the potential evils that humanity can attain can certainly be refreshing.

While living in Germany, we had opportunity to travel to Dachau, the former concentration camp outside of Munich. When we made our plans known to some older Germans, they thought it was ludicrous to take young children to such a place and “expose them to that kind of thing.” Well, I realized that my two and five year-old children were not really going to understand it or absorb it and that was fine. But, neither was I going to leave them behind at home. We were planning on traveling with extended family and going on to southern Germany afterwards, so they went along with us on this occasion.

And, like we all expected, the young children were indifferent to it all. They did not understand why we were standing around reading signs (boring) and they didn’t exactly get why we had brought them to this tedious, museum-like place. During the movie presentation, my Mother-in-Law took the two of them outside for some fresh air. We met them outside afterwards and walked around to the display barracks and to have a closer look at the guard towers. All the while they were being dragged along with us not quite sure what they had done to have to endure these tiresome events.


Then, the sun burst out from behind the clouds and even though the weather was cool, we were all able to strip off some cumbersome outer layers and enjoy a few fleeting rays of sunshine on our faces. The youngest one immediately plopped herself into the gravel and began to pile up rocks and draw and play in the dirt and then her sister quickly joined her. It was a beautiful site. Two young children; the picture of health, who were completely oblivious to the past evil of their surroundings, sitting and happily playing on the ground. The sun was shining down on them and the guard towers, the barracks and the memorial. And I was reminded that God “makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” and that the gift of childhood “innocence” is a beautiful and fleeting thing.