dachau concentration camp

After arriving in Munich, we spent the first day touring Dachau Concentration Camp. Visiting a concentration camp is something that I have always wanted to do, especially after reading Night, by Elie Wiesel, in high school. The Holocaust both fascinated me and made me compelled to gain a better understanding of the events, the camps, and the pain and suffering that the victims went through. Visiting Dachau was one of the most moving, upsetting, and especially eye-opening experiences I have ever had. As our tour guide told us, the survivors of the Holocaust, and those as Dachau specifically, want their stories to be told and known by all because the more educated we are, the less likely it will be for something like this to ever happen again.

A little background on Dachau.

Dachau was the first "prototype" camp created by Hitler and the SS, and its strategic position outside of Munich was a perfect place to build it because there were already trains leading right into the town as it was a factory town in previous years before it was destroyed. At first when the camp was opened in 1933, it was intended to be a work camp for political prisoners that opposed Hitler's reign, but by the end of the Holocaust it was used to imprison Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, disabled persons, and anyone that was willing to stand up to the wrongs of Hitler or who was deemed "social unacceptable." Although Dachau was never a "death camp," meaning that they never put into use the "shower room" or exterminated prisoners in mass quantities, it was known as a work camp, and many prisoners were worked to death.  It was determined that by the time the camp was freed by the American troops, there were anywhere between 30,000 and 70,000 deaths. Dachau was officially liberated by the Americans in 1945, 12 years it had been opened.

Entrance gate to the camp. The only way prisoners were allowed in and out (if they were ever freed).

"Work will make you free"

Barracks where the prisoners lived

Registration documents

Memorial sculpture created by a survivor of Dachau

The beds of the prisoners in the barracks. By the camp was freed it was determined there had been about 200,000 prisoners in the camp over the 12 years it was running.

The crematorium

Visiting Dachau humbled me, made me sad, made me mad, but most of all made me admire the strength and the hope that the prisoners in the camp held onto. Some made it to see the day when they would be freed and never experience oppression again, and others were not so fortunate, but either way these prisoners are some of the strongest, bravest people in our history and I am fortunate that I was able to visit the memorial. In the wishes of all those who survived, and in memory of those who fell, we must never forget, and even more, we must continue to educate those against oppression, racism, and inequality.

M