If you have visited a concentration camp, you know the emotional enormity it can bring out in you. You have probably felt a responsibility to continue to warn the world of what can happen. We felt all this today.
Dachau was opened shortly after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany (see yesterday's post for details on Hitler's career). The first group of 200 prisoners arrived March 22, 1933. It was a camp to house political prisoners, of which Hitler and the NSGWP had many in 1933. Imagine wanting to have so much power that you agree to imprison, torture, persecute and/or kill those who oppose you. For any reason and without opportunity for intervention. Terror reigned. This site, which had been a former munitions factory, was transformed to hold 6,000 prisoners and in the 12 years it was open Dachau's intake was over 206,000 prisoners.
 |
| "May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men." |
 |
| "Arbeit Macht Frei" original door, now in a protective glass case. |
 |
| Dachau Memorial created by Yugoslav Nandor Glid, a Holocaust survivor. |
The camp commandant, Theodor Eicke, imposed incredibly brutish punishments and harsh treatments, including standing cells where there was no room for a prisoner to sit or lie down, floggings, pole hangings where prisoners were suspended from a height by ropes tied to his wrists behind his back, whippings, beatings, and more.
Dachau became the model for other concentration camps and Eicke eventually became the Inspector for all other camps.
Starting in 1936, more types of prisoners were brought to Dachau. Repeat offenders, criminals, non-conformists such as Sinti, Roma and homosexuals. Jews were brought to Dachau following the Kristallnacht pogroms; almost 11,000 arrived at this camp. The brutality extended to stripping people of clothes, money, and all possessions when they arrived at Dachau starting in that year.
 |
A map showing locations and types of camps set up and run by the Nazis.
|
 |
Where did Dachau prisoners come from? How many were there? The history of this camp, of the SS and Gestapo and Nazis is beyond tyrannical.
|
As more prisoners arrived and more died, Dachau installed crematoria in 1940. World War Two accelerated the decline of conditions in Dachau due to overcrowding, lack of supplies and rations, unsanitary living conditions, and general lack of concern. Starting in 1942 medical experiments were performed on prisoners and euthanasia was utilized to control numbers. Just between January and April 1945 when the U.S. Army liberated Dachau, almost 12,000 died of typhoid.
Speaking with students as we exited the crematoria, I inquired how they were processing this visit to Dachau. One simply said "I cannot even process this right now." The hatred of one man for another, started because of differences in political ideology, is beyond anything this group had ever imagined.
 |
Memorial statue created by Fritz Koelle, "Unknown Concentration Camp Inmate" created in 1949. It is loosely translated "to the dead honor, to the living a reminder"
|
 |
| Honor site behind the crematoria; it contains some ashes of the beloved dead. For a long time the ashes from the crematoria were not kept in a honorable manner, being dumped in the river and used for fertilizer. |
.jpg)
