We planned to meet Caitlin at the train station at 8:15am. Our train was schedule to leave at 8:40am.
8:20am - No Caitlin.
8:30am - No Caitlin. Called her three times. No answer. Annika and Kendra go to find the train and the platform.
8:38.30 - Meghan and Caitlin come running up the stairs from the Metro. The three of us sprint to Platform 3. As we run up the ramp to the platform we see Kendra and Annika at the end of the tunnel motioning for us to come. We jump on the train just as the whistle blows and the train starts to move. Click on the link for realistic portrayal of this event.
Caitlin, Meghan, and Zach running to catch train
The train ride was relaxing. It was about a two hour trip.
We get off the train into the Dresden train station. Immediately we notice that there is an excess of heavily armored police in the train station. They seem to be standing in either lines or in large groups. Weird.
We exit the train station. We see tons of more heavily armored police. There was a small group of people waving black flags right outside of the exit. I didn't think anything of it, I mean it happens every day in D.C.
We continued to walk and soon found that it was about 15 degrees colder than Prague. I never thought I could be colder, but I was wrong. The wind was wicked.
Eventually we wound up with a map from a tourist info place, so we decided to camp out in a small cafe. Meghan texted Petr to see if he knew what the protest was about. We had seen many more policemen from the train station to the cafe. Petr texts us back, paraphrased, holy shit there is a neonazi parade today, don't yell anything anti-fascist, are you okay. Greeeeeaaaaaat.
To be honest we were all pretty intrigued by a Neo-Nazi rally. Its not every day you go to Germany and wind up in the biggest Neo-Nazi rally in the past thirty years (Click here to read more).
So we walked back to the train station to see what the hullabaloo was all about. Turns out, the exact area where we exited was now full of Neo-Nazis. We could only approach a fence that was about 100 yards away from the train station. Somebody was busying making a speech and dropping Guiliani 9/11-bombs (i.e. Holocaust, Vietnam, Iraq, Holocaust again, etc.). It was most likely the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life. There was a good amount of people on our side of the fence watching, like us, out of curiosity. There was also a couple of people on our side of the fence whistling to show their disapproval.
We eventually wandered away and decided to go see what Dresden had to offer. Turns out, not too much in the middle of winter. We snapped a couple pictures of buildings, saw some old architecture, and then decided to go somewhere warm before our ears fell off.
For 4.50euro we entered a Renaissance era art museum. I believe it was some state museum. It was pretty cool. We were there for about an hour and a half when we looked out the window, and about 100 feet away from the museum was a huge rally. There was a stage set up and a band was playing to a motley assortment of people. There was a gay peace flag, so we figured that we had finally found the right side.
Bored of boring art, we went out into the crowd. There was a huge group of people. Many younger, but also many older folks. The strange assortment of signs made me slightly uncomfortable because I know no German. I most likely rocked out with an anarchist, a communist, and maybe a couple of nudists. Better than Neo-Nazis...
We stayed at the concert for about 10 minutes. Took some photos, videos, and then moved on. We walked around the corner, maybe a quarter of a mile, when we ran smack into a huge crowd of police. The stairs that we had eariler walked up to get a view of the river, were now crowded with people dressed in black and chanting something or other. The police successfully created a barricade around the Neo-Nazis so that we could only see from a distance. Where we were standing, on the edge, was close enough though. It felt like we were in the center of it. Right next to us about 100 more heavily armored police came pouring out. (Sidenote: About a third of the German police are women). It was a pretty frightening experience.
It seemed like a good time to go, so we started to walk back to the train station. It was already about 3:30pm. The first train that we could take was at 5pm. We wound up crashing at McDonalds for about 25 minutes. Best Happy Meal of my life.
The rally next to the train station was over, but the many of the Neo-Nazis had not gone home. We walked through a couple hundred of them to get to the train station. This was quite possibly the most intense experience of it all. Knowing what they believe and being so close to it was ridiculous. Makes you just want to yell, what are you thinking? But you don't, punching one of them in the face will most likely hurt you more, 39938487 piercings all over most of their faces...
We spent much of the first half hour on the train discussing what we had seen.
Writing this entry took some time because seeing 6000 Neo-Nazis is not something I ever thought would happen. It was a useful experience. Yet disappointing and upsetting at the same time. While studying history, I've learned that this stuff is still out there, but to see it firsthand is an entirely different matter. I don't regret being in Dresden on the day of the "Mourning March," I only wish that I could say that I was inspired by the counter-resistance, but I wasn't. Basically, shit sucks in the world. You read your history books, and you don't see it. You listen to professors lecture about all kinds of garbage, but its not in your face. I suppose in some queer way this is a testament to the benefits of studying abroad.
Study abroad: See a Neo-Nazi rally!
Hopefully not, but if you do, it'll change the way you see the world. Now I'm just rambling, but to sum it all up... Germany deserves a second chance, next time I'm going in Spring.
Intense stuff. Best not to live with your head in the sand, with eyes wide open to both the good and bad in people.
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