Having recovered from the previous day's trip and had one of Schlossberg's excellent breakfasts we decided to go and visit Mahn und Gedenkstätte. This was one of the
many WWII forced labour camps in Germany in which aircraft parts, machinery and other parts vital to the German war effort and the German economy
were manufactured under terrible conditions by what was essentially slave labour.
It was a very sad place in which thousands of people lived, worked and often died hundreds of miles from home.
The day before the Allies arrived in Wernigerode the poor internees were marched to Leitmeritz in what is now the Czech Republic to prevent them from being liberated. It's miles:
a three hour drive - or around three hundred and twenty kilometers - so this was a death march for many. It seemed like a long way in the car when we did it later in the week. Details to come...
This was not very far up the road from Wernigerode but how awful it must have been to be within sight of liberation and then to be forced to march further from freedom.
Being there in the cold and the snow made the place seem even more sad. Steinerne Renne is a gloomy little corner at on the Harzer Schmalspurbahn at the best of times
but this was even more atmospheric. The place used to be a popular holiday spot as the falls on the Holtemme river were apparently very picturesque, but we didn't feel
like trekking around this sad place in the snow.
I always feel that narrow gauge railway stations can be very melancholy places when there are no trains around.
Having had enough of work camps and melancholy places for one day (there is more of this to come in vastly greater doses) we went up to
Drei Annen Hohne to see if there were any trains around. There were!
To round off the day we went on up to Schierke. There were no trains running to the top of the Brocken that day as the wind at the top was dangerously strong.
Clara's exhaust is still noisy as is the wiper motor, but she's hanging in there. The weather forecast for the rest of the week is better, especially for the
end of the week, so hopefully we shan't have to use the wiper too much...
21 Germany Again Three