I write today with a very heavy heart. I am just sorta quiet and pensive. I'm sure tomorrow I will perk right back up.
Today I visited Dachau concentration camp, and I need to write about it before I write about our other Munich happenings.
Forgive me if my writing is jumbled and disjointed. And if my pictures aren't great. It was really sunny. Also, some of these pictures are a little graphic.
Dachau was the first concentration camp, set up as a "work and reeducation" camp. It was in operation for 12 years, during which time over 40,000 people died here. Some from living conditions, some from sickness, some from experiments, some from murder.
Pictures and stories
The road the prisoners marched from the train station was excavated recently. The gatehouse stands at the end.
View of the road from the gatehouse, 1945
The gate inscription- work gives you freedom.
Gatehouse from inside the camp- what the prisoners saw as the gate to outside.
Roll call area where prisoners stood at attention twice a day for an hour each time despite the weather or their ability to do so.
Maintenance building, where prisoners came in and their clothes were taken. They were then showered and given a number, prison clothes, and a badge symbolizing their group (Jewish, communist, homosexual, etc.).
Room where they handed over their clothes and got their badge and number
"No smoking"
Shower area, now with wood for visitors to walk on. They showered when they arrived and then at most once a week.
Shaving kit
Massive T-shaped monument now outside the maintenance building.
The "bunker"- a jail within the prison camp.
Bunker courtyard where prisoners were publicly punished or executed. Often by being hung by their wrists for a while.
There were 136 cells, but some were split into 4 standing cells- 2 feet square floor space each.
Cell door in the bunker
Alter in the bunker where special prisoners that were clergymen could perform religious exercises.
Bunker hallway when all the other tourists left. Emotional. Many prisoners were murdered or committed suicide behind these doors. Many more suffered and died later in the camp.
A cell
Cells for SS prisoners serving military sentences.
The bunker included a registration room, interrogation room, and medical examination room. They all looked the same.
They had dark rooms where prisoners were kept for days or longer without light and with even less food and water than the rest of the camp. One of the narratives that touched me was a prisoner who was so bored he made a chess set. The pieces were of kneaded bread but he could only make 3 pieces a day because he was hungry, of course. Half the pieces were dyed dark with beet soup. The chess board was made on the back of a black shovel and white spaces were made with pieces of paper stuck on with white soup. He played chess with himself for days.
A re-creation of 1 of 36 original barracks.
The camp was small originally, but prisoners were forced to build a bigger camp.
Camp road, down the center of the 2 rows of barracks.
The same road in 1938. Prisoners mostly just walked back and forth to work here. Rarely, it was a place to talk and have some solidarity among the prisoners.
Foundations of the barracks that have not been recreated. One of 7 guard towers in the back.
Aerial of the barracks, 1945.
Some of the barracks were used as the infirmary, which grew as the war continued. The camp was meant to hold 6,000 but was holding over 30,000 at liberation. Barracks were extremely overcrowded. Disease spread easily.
Barracks recreated. Beds in three stages as the camp and number of prisoners grew.
There are now 4 religious memorial sites in the back of the camp. There used to be a greenhouse and brothel in this area. Female prisoners were forced to work in the brothel and produce more prisoners when more workers were needed.
Catholic chapel.
Bell given by Austria. Rings twice a day.
Jewish memorial
Convent entrance and chapel. Yes, there is a small convent behind the prisoner camp now. They said it should always be a place of prayer and remembrance.
Black Madonna used by imprisoned clergymen now housed in the convent chapel
Protestant church. Odd shapes are meant to contrast the perfect rectangles of the camp.
Russian Orthodox Church memorial.
Watch tower. Death strip here consisted of a ditch and electric fence. Many people threw themselves into the fence to avoid further suffering.
Entrance to crematorium.
Statue of unknown prisoner.
Graves of thousands. Where ashes were shoveled and buried.
Sites of executions by firing squads.
The small lane around the grave site.
Crematorium
And in 1945.
Waiting room. Prisoners would get briefed on using the "showers".
Disrobing room door to "showers"
"Showers". Gas chambers
Fake showers on ceiling. Top grate on the middle wall is to look in from the hall and make sure everyone is dead. Top on the right is for air flow to get the gas out. Spicket on the middle wall is to release water to wash the floor after corpses are removed.
Outside chute to put in poison gas pellets
Room to store corpses.
And in 1945
Furnace room. Furnaces could hold 3 bodies at once. Prisoners were regularly hung from the rafters and killed here as punishment, watching the furnaces they would be placed in.
This is the room where I felt physically ill. People walking by were crying. It was emotional.
Now they say that no mass murders occurred in the gas chamber here. Only small groups were killed here. The Nazis claimed that the Americans built it upon liberation. ......just wow. Illegal photos and photos taken by Americans on liberation day are on display, and I've posted some above. The crematorium, allegedly, was mostly used to dispose of those already dead.
The old crematorium, in use until 1943.
A few images from the museum
All the concentration camps across Europe
All the Dachau satellite camps
Where prisoners of Dachau came from- over 30 countries
No caption necessary
Memorial part of the museum
What the Americans saw on liberation day.
Honestly, you don't leave feeling good about liberation. You leave thinking about everything that came before it.
I really enjoyed my visit. I got an audio guide for only €2.50 so I always had something to listen to and good explanations of stuff. They even had narratives by a survivor and 2 liberators in English. I definitely wouldn't have enjoyed the visit as much in total silence.
When I say enjoyed, I do mean it. It is a sad place but I felt like I learned a lot and really got to experience something unique to this part of the world. I only cried a couple of times. Everyone is very quiet and respectful. And it's pretty neat that its all preserved and recreated so you can really step back in time and experience the camp. The day was sunny and warm. The whole site was so peaceful and serene. It is definitely a memorial site. It's not meant to scare or exaggerate. It just tells the story and remembers. And I liked that.
Never again.
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