The day started wet and dreary--which I suppose was fitting given that we were going to be visiting Dachau, Germany. Dachau was the site of the first concentration camp in Germany and was, in fact, the model for all those that followed.
Before I write about the experience, I want to share a little disclaimer. In this post, I'm writing about my feelings and reactions to Dachau. Some of these feelings I'm still trying to figure out how to articulate. So if I don't explain myself well, it's because it's not easy to put into words my reaction to Dachau.
As a kid (and later teenager), I read a lot of Holocaust literature from nonfiction by Eli Wiesel and Anne Frank as well as historical fiction like Briar Rose and The True Story of Hansel and Gretel. So visiting the site where it all began interested me.
The experience was even more disturbing and upsetting that I had imagined it would be. When you read literature about the Holocaust, you can imagine the suffering of the characters, and you feel for them. However, it's hard to really imagine what such a setting is like because it is so far outside of any reality that you have ever known. It's hard to imagine that a place--such as a concentration camp--was really real and that such a thing as the Holocaust happened.
One of the first things that I noticed--or rather that unnerved me--was the city of Dachau itself. I know that the city of Dachau was there before the concentration camp, but it seems so unnatural for this small suburban town to be located right next to the concentration camp. It seems weird to see people living their daily lives so near a place full of death.
I had always imagined that concentration camps were out in the middle of nowhere. It gave me the illusion that people didn't really know what was happening and that's why they didn't protest. However, at Dachau, there is no way that people didn't know what was happening in the camp.
As I mentioned before, the concentration camp at Dachau was the first of its kind and the model for the rest of the concentration camps that were created later. Surprisingly, it was opened shortly after Hitler came to power--only 51 days into his rule. Originally, the concentration camp held primarily political prisoners--basically anyone who opposed Hitler. It's estimated that in it's 12 year history, Dachau saw over 200,000 prisoners.
As we entered Dachau, I was surprised to see a large group of German teenagers near the entrance. However, I learned later that once they hit a certain age German students visit concentration camps every other year as part of their education about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, I'm not entirely sure how effective I think such a measure is. I wonder if all those visits in a sense desensitizes kids to the real horror of these places.
While the camp was in operation from 1933 to 1945, as prisoners entered the concentration camp, they passed by the following words "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Sets You Free." In addition to political prisoners, other groups of people were also sent to the concentration camp--including groups that were seen as racial inferior (Jewish people and Gypsies), people who didn't fit in with the Nazi idea of the master race (Jehovah's Witness and homosexuals), and people who opposed the Nazis (clergy, Communists, and International Brigade members) Depending on their prisoner classification, prisoners had different emblems and received different treatment from guards. For example, a prisoner who was Jewish received worse treatment than a treatment who was a Communist.
Dachau was also used for medical experimentation purposes. The prisoners were used in these experiments to discover the effects of high altitude and hypothermia such as pilots might experience in flight. Unfortunately, much of what doctors today know about the effects of high altitude and hypothermia came from these experiments. In addition to these experiments, scientists used the prisoners for experiments on malaria, tuberculosis, and sepsis by deliberating infecting them with these diseases.
The last part of our visit of the camp was the crematorium--which was indescribable. The air inside this building is oppressive--weighed down by years of terrible things happening there. I felt like I could hardly breathe.
Within the walls of Dachau, there are various religious memorials--including Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, and Russian Orthodox memorials or chapels. This Jewish memorial says "DO NOT FORGET."
This is a statue erected near the crematorium--referred to as the statue of the unknown prisoner. At the base of the statue, it says, "Den Toten zur Ehr. Den Lebenden zur Mahnung" or "To honor the dead and admonish/warn the living."
Dachau was liberated by American soldiers in April of 1945.
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