As a child, I often heard my parents reminisce about their trip to Ruhpolding. My mother always pronounced the word with a look of bliss on her face, so I came to associate this mythical place with pleasure. When I got old enough to delve into the family collection of photo albums, I stumbled on a series of vacation shots, labeled Ruhpolding. Both my parents looked very young, although they had outgrown the bony look of their earliest years. One shot showed my father in hiking shorts, smoking a pipe in front of a romantic alpine vista, aiming a smoldering look at the camera. Another featured my mother, her dimples flashing, holding a paper cone of cherries. “We couldn’t really afford them,” my mother confided each time we encountered this image, “but I was pregnant with you and really wanted those cherries. They were delicious.”
I’ve been planning a trip to Austria in August - the goal was to spend some time in the mountains and in Vienna. After studying flights and possible routes, I decided we’d fly into Munich and make a loop. Sophie’s asked whether we could go see the Eagle’s Nest - Hitler’s mountain retreat in Southern Bavaria. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since she just finished a history course about daily life in Germany during the Nazi Era.
Perhaps it’s her job to drag me to places I would avoid on my own. Without her I would never have gone to Buchenwald. I don’t want to close my eyes to that part of the past; it’s more that I’m afraid of getting stuck there. Buchenwald brought cruelty alive in unexpected detailed ways that lodged in my heart and bubble up at unexpected moments. For me, it was the path from the train to the barracks labeled Carachoweg ( which meant “ faster” path), where the guards harried the prisoners whose legs were weak from standing for hours wedged into cattle cars. Their shouts echo in my imagination.
I understand that the Eagle’s Nest is benign. It’s a lovely setting, with a great mountain view, that is said to have made Hitler dizzy, so that he only visited there a few times. As I surveyed the map in search of a place close by to spend a few days, I spied Ruhpolding. The town has a very user-friendly website that made it easy for me to reserve rooms. Perhaps the site of my parents first vacation will provide balance and keep me from sliding too far into the past.
