Riding in the train from Vienna to Munich, I reflect on the experiences of the last 10 days. As I madly try to capture the perfect image from the dirty window of a train travelling up to 200 km/h I see it as metaphor of my time spent in these cities. Just as I get my camera ready the view has disappeared. I have been trying to document what I have seen but there is something else just outside of my line of sight. It is more to do with what we don’t see, the stories we don’t choose to tell others, rather than the stories we tell. In drumming, we say the gap, or the space is the most important part of the music…it makes the groove. Without the gap there is no dance, no story, no meaning.
It is a common trait of humans everywhere to do this. We only present to strangers a chosen part of the truth of ourselves, we often keep the important bits of our identity hidden, only to divulge at a time of our choosing. Countries also do this. The stories a countries tells and the various ways history is interpreted are connected to national identity and therefore it is also political. In Australia, we have our own history wars with conflict over our ‘peaceful’ white settlement … or was it a violent invasion.
Both Hungary and Austria have similarities in their experiences of WW2 and the Holocaust, but from my casual and brief observation they have differed in the acceptance of the extent of their collaboration in the atrocities that occured. The way these stories are told can have great influence on both the present and the future, in terms of both public opinion and government policy.
In both these countries, and probably other parts of Europe as well, the story of the Holocaust is being rewritten to suit the national conservative and Christian historical narrative. I do feel though, again from my relatively brief and casual encounters, that Hungary has accepted its collaboration, or at least they had until the more recent Far-Right wing pressure to retell the story, whereas Austria has not. In Austria it appears that their involvement in the atrocities of WW2 is not spoken about or acknowledged.
Part of what I wanted to experience on this trip was train travel and I am loving this experience. The trip from Vienna to Munich was four hours. I spent the time blogging, pondering these above issues, reading articles I had downloaded, and gazing out the window, occasionally trying to capture that perfect, obscure picture! As we arrived in Munich it was time to set aside these deeper thoughts and return to the present.
The train system in European cities is so much more extensive than Australia. It is a wonderful and easy way to travel. And the railway lines are equally extensive and worthy of documenting.
We arrive in Munich and make our way to our apartment which is very centrally located. We are both immediately quite taken with Munich. I, personally, get the feeling Munich is honest, down to earth and fun.
We wander central Munich and end up at a Brauhaus that specialises in wheat beer, my favourite. It is complete with traditionally clad Bavarian barmaids, much to Jeremy’s delight. We are looked after by Jen 2, our neighbour Jen’s dopledanger They have nine different beers on tap so we are obliged to sample a few. They are quite strong so we decide we need to eat here..a tasting plate of sausages and a salad with pork to share.
On the way back to our room we pass a pub playing soccer on the TV (a Munich team against a Spanish one) so we swing by for a couple more beers. This is much more our style than Vienna where bars were hard to find! We meet the locals and chat to Hans. He lives in an apartment nearby, has an eight year old daughter, loves to have friendly bets on the soccer and also likes to travel in a camper van. He has been around Europe, to Australia and America.
So that is Munich, we both decide that we could have spent longer here and would like to come back for a longer visit. We are up in the morning to navigate U trains or S trains, and buses to find our way out of town to pick up our camper van.
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