# Following Their Footsteps: A Personal Journey Through Germany’s Holocaust History
I came to Germany with a very specific destination in mind, though it did not appear on most tourist maps. I wanted to trace the place where two Auschwitz survivors married decades ago—an ordinary-looking corner of Germany carrying an extraordinary family story.
The journey took me through Munich and the towns south and west of the city, where displaced persons camps, Jewish communities, memorials, and scattered family records helped fill in the gaps. I was not looking for a polished historical route. I wanted to stand where they had stood, understand what Germany felt like after the war, and see what remains visible today.
The experience was quiet, emotional, and sometimes frustrating. Records are incomplete. Buildings have changed. Some places survive only in archives or in the memories of local historians. But that uncertainty became part of the trip.
## The Vibe & When to Go
Germany feels especially gentle in late spring and early autumn. On my visit, the mornings were cool, the skies changed quickly, and the parks were bright with fresh green leaves. Cafés spilled onto sidewalks, trains ran through tidy neighborhoods, and small towns grew quiet after dinner.
That calm can feel strange when you are visiting places connected to the Holocaust. In Munich, people ride bicycles past memorials on their way to work. In smaller towns, children play near streets where displaced survivors once waited for news of relatives. The contrast stays with you.
I would choose **May, June, September, or early October** for this kind of journey. The weather is comfortable for walking, memorial sites are generally open, and you avoid the busiest summer crowds. Winter has its own solemn beauty, but short daylight hours and cold weather make it harder to spend long periods outdoors.
Before visiting, check the opening hours for memorials and museums. Many close on Mondays, and some smaller archives require an appointment.
## Must-See Places Along the Route
### 1. Munich’s Jewish Museum and the city centre
Munich was my starting point because it provides context before you travel farther afield. The **Jewish Museum Munich** does not try to turn history into a spectacle. Its exhibits helped me understand Jewish life in Bavaria before, during, and after the Holocaust.
I spent time in the nearby **St. Jakobs-Platz** area, where the museum, synagogue, and community centre stand together. It is a place to pause rather than rush through with a camera.
From there, I walked through the old centre toward Marienplatz. Munich is attractive and lively, but I found myself paying attention to the small memorial markers set into pavements and walls. They are easy to miss. Give yourself an unhurried afternoon, and let the city’s present-day life sit beside the history.
**My tip:** Visit the museum early, then walk rather than taking the underground immediately. The route through the old centre gives you time to absorb what you have seen.
### 2. Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
The **Dachau Memorial** is not the place to visit casually between shopping and dinner. I set aside several hours and arrived as early as I could.
The grounds are broad and stark. The former prisoner buildings, the roll-call area, the crematorium site, and the long central path make the scale of the camp difficult to avoid. I found the quieter corners more affecting than the sections crowded with tour groups.
Dachau was not Auschwitz, and I tried not to treat the memorial as a substitute for the places my family story was actually connected to. Still, it helped me understand the machinery of persecution that shaped the survivors’ lives before they reached the postwar camps.
**Practical advice:** Wear comfortable shoes, bring water, and do not plan another major attraction immediately afterward. The visit can leave you drained.
### 3. Landsberg am Lech and the traces of displaced-persons life
Landsberg am Lech became one of the most meaningful stops for me because it helped bridge the gap between liberation and rebuilding a life.
After the war, displaced persons camps across Bavaria became temporary homes for Jewish survivors. People married, raised children, searched for relatives, learned languages, and made plans to leave Europe. The word “temporary” often lasted for years.
Landsberg today is a pleasant Bavarian town with colourful buildings, river walks, and a compact old centre. That normality is part of what makes the historical research so moving. I walked along the streets with old photographs and notes, trying to picture a newly married couple beginning again in a place that may have felt both safe and painfully close to the past.
The exact location connected to a family wedding may not be clearly marked. Local archives, municipal records, synagogue histories, and the **Landsberg municipal archive** can be more useful than a standard sightseeing map. Contact them before you travel, especially if you have names, dates, camp numbers, marriage certificates, or old addresses.
### 4. Feldafing and the lakeside landscape
Feldafing, on Lake Starnberg, is another place worth including if your research leads there. The area is beautiful, with wooded paths and views across the water, but its postwar history is far heavier than the scenery suggests.
A displaced persons camp operated in the area after the war, and Jewish survivors lived there while trying to rebuild their lives. I found it unsettling to walk through such a peaceful landscape while thinking about how many people had arrived there with almost nothing.
This is not a place with a single dramatic landmark that explains everything. Go slowly. Read before you arrive, bring copies of family documents, and allow room for your own thoughts.
**A small courtesy:** Do not photograph private homes or residents while searching for former camp locations. The absence of visible evidence does not mean the history is unimportant.
## Practical Travel Advice
### Getting There and Visa Requirements
From Toronto, you will usually find the most convenient flights to **Frankfurt or Munich**. Munich is the better base for a route involving Dachau, Landsberg, and Feldafing. Frankfurt can work if airfare is significantly cheaper, but you will spend more time travelling south.
Canadian passport holders can generally enter Germany and the wider Schengen Area **without a visa for up to 90 days in any 180-day period** for tourism. Your passport should be valid for at least three months beyond your planned departure from the Schengen Area and should have been issued within the previous ten years.
Entry rules can change, so check the Government of Canada travel page and Germany’s official immigration information before booking. The upcoming European travel authorization system may also affect Canadian visitors, depending on when you travel.
Keep your return ticket, accommodation details, and travel insurance information easy to access. I was never asked for all of it, but having the documents saved on my phone made the airport experience less stressful.
### Where to Stay
**Altstadt or Maxvorstadt, Munich:**
Best if you want museums, restaurants, and easy access to public transport. It is convenient but more expensive, especially around Marienplatz.
**Schwabing:**
A livelier neighbourhood with cafés, bars, and a younger atmosphere. I liked it for evenings when I wanted to step away from the more formal tourist centre.
**Near Munich Hauptbahnhof:**
Useful for early trains and day trips, though the area can feel busy and less polished at night. Choose a well-reviewed hotel or apartment on a quieter side street.
**Landsberg am Lech:**
A good choice for a slower few nights. You can walk around the old town, eat locally, and begin archival visits without returning to Munich each evening.
For a research-focused trip, I would split the stay: three or four nights in Munich, followed by two nights in Landsberg or near Lake Starnberg.
### Getting Around
Munich’s **U-Bahn, S-Bahn, trams, and buses** are reliable and easy once you understand the zones. The MVV app is useful for route planning and digital tickets.
For Dachau, take the S-Bahn to Dachau station, then the local bus to the memorial. Allow more time than the journey planner suggests if you are travelling during rush hour.
Landsberg am Lech is reachable by regional train, usually with a change depending on your starting point. Check the timetable on the DB Navigator app. Regional trains can be delayed, so avoid booking a connection with only a few minutes between platforms.
You can walk around the centres of Munich and Landsberg easily. For rural memorials or scattered archive visits, renting a car for a day may save time. Uber is available in Munich, but taxis are more useful in smaller towns. I would not rely on rideshares outside the major cities.
## Real Costs and Local Tips
Germany is not the cheapest European destination, but I found it manageable with a little planning.
### Approximate daily budgets
**Budget traveller: €75–€110 per person**
– Hostel or simple room: €30–€55
– Groceries and inexpensive meals: €20–€30
– Local transport: €8–€15
– Museums and small extras: €10–€20
**Mid-range traveller: €150–€230 per person**
– Comfortable hotel: €90–€150
– Restaurants and cafés: €35–€60
– Transport and occasional taxi: €15–€30
– Museums, archives, and other costs: €10–€25
Prices rise during Oktoberfest, major trade fairs, and summer weekends. Munich hotels can become surprisingly expensive during those periods.
Germany uses the **euro**. Cards are widely accepted, but smaller cafés, bakeries, ticket machines, and rural businesses may still prefer cash. I kept €30–€50 in my wallet and used a card with no foreign transaction fee whenever possible.
Tipping is modest rather than dramatic. I usually rounded up or left around **5–10%** for good restaurant service. Tell the server the total you want to pay when using a card—for example, “Thirty-five, please” on a €32 bill—rather than leaving cash afterward.
### A few things that saved me money
– **Buy bakery breakfasts.** A filled roll, pastry, and coffee can cost much less than a hotel breakfast and often made a better start to the day.
– **Use regional train tickets carefully.** A Bayern Ticket can be good value for day trips within Bavaria, but it has time restrictions and is not valid on every train. Check before boarding.
– **Book museums directly.** Third-party ticket sites sometimes add fees and can make simple reservations look more complicated than they are.
– **Carry a reusable bottle.** Tap water is safe, and buying drinks at every station adds up quickly.
– **Avoid rushing the memorial visits.** A guided tour can be worthwhile, but I preferred reading in advance and paying for one well-chosen tour rather than joining several generic city walks.
The most important preparation was not financial. I brought copies of every document I had: names in different spellings, wedding dates, old photographs, camp references, and family stories that seemed too small to matter. One handwritten note ended up being more useful than a polished online search.
Tracing that marriage did not give me a perfect ending. I did not find every building or answer every question. What I found instead was a fuller sense of the lives these two people built after Auschwitz: the waiting, the paperwork, the uncertain homes, and finally the decision to marry and begin again.
Germany did not make the story easier. It made it more real.
KEYWORDS: Munich Germany