May 31
Germany: Black Forest
This is the location of Stalag VC, a Nazi POW camp in Malschbach near Baden-Baden. It was built in 1939 and closed in 1944. Information at the site notes that of the forced laborers, Soviet & Eastern European prisoners were treated much worse than the American and French POWs. At least 205 people died there.
It's very quiet there now. Quiet, and beautiful. I've heard there are places where the land remembers what happened there, where the feeling of evil lingers. That was not my experience here. It's on us to remember.
#germany#black forest#malschbach#I have a lot to say about this country's way of engaging with its past that I'm not sure I'll ever necessarily share#we also did not go out of our way to see historical sites like this so anything we found was in the natural course of traveling through#but I at least want to look it in the face and tell you what happened in the places I did end up at#germany 2025#my photo#made by me