If I understand your questions…
Once you’ve validated it for that day, you’re free to use it as much as you want on all participating trains. Buying point-to-point ticket separately does not affect your pass.

This all depends on what you choose to do. You can use a day of the railpass to get from Berlin to the Polish border and just buy a point to point ticket from the border to Krakow OR you can choose to buy a point to point ticket from Berlin to Krakow and not use the railpass.

Since you’re taking an overnight train from Berlin to Krakow (I hope, this would be the most boring 10 hour ride on this planet on a day train) , I’d look at not using the pass for that. Look for a cheap ticket at http://reiseauskunft… There are specials as cheap as 39 euros for ticket and seat reservation (usually 49 euros for ticket and couchette reservation) on the direct over night train — just the couchette reservation (required and not covered by your railpass) will probably cost 19 euros. Use the link to check pricing from the border to the border to Munich to see what works out best for that — although I wouldn’t take the train for that leg on a bet. Have you looked for cheap flights?

Oh ok great, thank you! That has answered my question.

And have not looked at flights yet as it is still a ways away (March of 2011). Just getting lots of the planning done early. Will not know our official dates of when we leave for Europe until next month. So at that point I can start looking more seriously.

I am sad to say though that the more thought I put into it, the more I think I should skip Poland I do not have enough time to do justice, and the time and money spent to get there for just 2 days does not seem worth it. Which is too bad because I REALLY wanted to visit Auschwitz….

Although maybe if there are some really good deals and we are able to get a few extra days added to our trip, I can consider it again!

Dachau is a Munich suburb. You can take the S-bahn to Dachau and then a bus to the concentration camp. It’s an easy 1/2 day trip while you’re in Munich. The S-bahn is covered by your railpass, but you wouldn’t want to burn a day of the pass for a few euros worth of subway rides.

Dachau, a concentration camp, is different than a death camp like Auschwitz-Birkenau that was designed to systematically kill people, but it’s a chilling experience all the same. Thousands died of starvation, disease, medical “experiments,” executions and being worked to death and were cremated at Dachau, but the gas chambers were never used.