Dresden, Germany

Berlin really took a lot out of us. We wanted to do as much as we could, and by doing so we became incredibly exhausted. Thankfully, Dresden was only a short two hour train ride away. We made it into the city in the early evening and decided to rest for the night. Our hotel was also partially a hostel, so there was a bizarre mix of retirement-aged travelers and teens mingling about and making noise. From our room we had a view of the old town which had many church spires piercing the skyline.


Our morning began like most so far, on foot. We walked into the center of the old town where an autumn carnival was taking place. Enormous cathedrals punctuated just about every block leading up to the river. Dresden was once home to several generations of Saxon kings and was known as a cultural and industrial center, rich with priceless art and famous architecture. Then it was repeatedly firebombed by Allied forces for two days in February of 1945. Buildings that survived show evidence of the devastation, scorched and blackened. It took several decades but the city has finally rebuilt itself to its former stature. One key structure used as an example of the city’s rejuvenation is the Frauenkirche, the Church of Our Lady. Below are pictures of what the church originally looked like, after the bombing and finally rebuilt using as much of the rubble as was possible.




The portion still standing after the bombing is intact today. Any of the blackened stones shown are original pieces of the structure that were reclaimed and used in the rebuilding process. The reconstruction of the Frauenkirche was finally completed in 2008. Most of the buildings that were destroyed were rebuilt to look exactly the way they were before the war. It is amazing to see such perseverance for original restoration considering that larger cities moved on after the destruction with newer facades. Unfortunately, most of the buildings are not marked as to whether they have been completely rebuilt or if they survived, so it’s hard to tell how old some buildings really are.


One inspiration for our stop in Dresden was to find schlachthof-fünf, the location where author Kurt Vonnegut survived the bombings as a prisoner of war in an underground meat freezer inside of a slaughterhouse. There were no clear directions to the location, and not many knew who Vonnegut was. Our only clue was to find a placard across from a bus station near a sports complex. Our search took us around the area for about three hours, often feeling as though we were aimlessly searching for something that could not be seen. But fatigue did not hinder us; we were determined to find it before the sun went down. Our resolve paid off as we finally spotted the placard hidden conveniently behind a tree. It tells the story of the bombings on one side and a quote from the novel “Slaughterhouse-five” on the other. Unfortunately, both sides are written in German. The only sentence I can make out is “So geht das” (So it goes). We were both joyous yet restrained, having found what we were looking for but understanding what that building represents. The story goes on about how the POW’s were forced by the Nazis to collect the burned bodies from the city, but there were just too many. So the Nazis decided to go through the city with flamethrowers and crudely cremate the bodies left behind. It has been estimated that just under thirty thousand people perished in the bombings. We both felt thankful that the city kept the buildings intact, although we’re not sure why they did. They don’t have any marks of recognition other than the obscure one at the bus station, and it’s not a part of the city’s overall must-see cultural experience. In fact, it’s mostly obscured by a modern sports complex and a school. But for us, we wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

Next stop: Prague, Czech Republic