Day 15...Dachau Concentration Camp

Woke up 7 am to a cloudy and chilly morning. Got to the train station and headed through Munich to Dachau, about an hour and a half. Dachau is a small town located between Munich and the Munich airport. Today, Dachau has become quite expensive to live as everybody wants to live there. What is interesting, this town has built itself up though in the middle sit’s the concentration camp of Dachau.

The camp itself is at the end of a long path where the prisoners walked to enter the iron gates of Dachau Concentration camp. Nearing the iron gate, you can see the barbed wire surrounding the camp. There is a river that separates the walking path and the camp. Coming up to the gates there is a phrase that becomes the focal point, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” (Work Makes You Free).


As you enter you walk into the beginning of this very large square. Here the prisoners walked in and listened to the harsh lecture from that commanding officer, being told they no longer had rights and are now alone.

What is now the museum, was the processing center. First the names were logged into a book, all possessions that each of them brought were taken away. Having to strip naked, they were sent into a large room to shower. Some prisoners that were being transferred from other camps became very scared as they knew what the Germans called a shower was not such. Luckily in this case it was an actual shower room.


In the shower room was a large wooden beam with hooks. Here the SS officers would tie the prisoners hands behind their backs and them hang their tied hands on the hooks. The prisoners would hang in such a way, you can only assume the their arms would pop out of their sockets.
Next they had one minute to get the prisoner uniform on, did not matter if it was to small or large. Each prisoner was there for one reason or another, meaning their nationality, opposition to the Hitler regime, sexual orientation, thieves or prisoners of war. This was also logged at the beginning of processing. Each prisoner given pieces of cloth that had to used to make a triangle and or a band. Each cloth was a different color deepening on why they were there. Jewish a yellow triangle, homosexuals a lavender triangle, high risk criminals a black triangle and so on. I had no idea the amount of people from all walks of life that entered through those iron gates. Spaniards, Russians, Austrians, French, Jewish, Czechs even those political figures who went against Hitler.


Coming out the other side of the museum we are back to the large square facing the barracks that housed the prisoners. These barracks were made to hold 200 prisoners each, and the camp itself 6,000 prisoners. At the end of the war, there were over 32,000. As more and more prisoners were sent to Dachau, typhoid fever became an epidemic and starvation. Their food was heavily rationed, most made to go with out, another form of punishment. Inside the barracks, the beds have been rebuilt so that you could get an idea of how they lived. They were so small, those that were tall would have to sleep with their legs bent. These beds were just stacked on top of each other. Each area had to be immaculate, beds made, floors clean, not carvings on the wooden lockers, if such was not done, all hell broke loose.

Today there are only two barracks still standing, the others no longer there, but their concrete foundation still exist’. I only counted 30, but it was stated that there are 34 total, some of these may have been in the back behind the museum. Fifteen barrack on each side of a long road with trees lining both sides. This road would soon become known to the many survivors as “the road to freedom”.

Behind where the barracks were are places of remembrance and worship, Jewish, Catholic, Russian Orthodox and Protestant, now have buildings/monuments to support each. To the back and left of the camp itself sit’s the most horrid part of the camp, the crematorium and gas chamber.

We walked passed a few memorials that represented the graves of “Thousand of Unknown” here lie the ashes of those that have been cremated, beautifully decorated and memorialized. Between these graves was the area of execution by pistols, the area had been left as is and the foliage grows naturally. Unknownst to me, Alx lost it at the sights of these graves.



On to the center of the area is the second crematorium that was built as the first one could not handle the amount of those that died to be cremated. We entered on the side that I thought to be the gas chamber, yes I lost it, just as I lost it in the gas chamber scene of Schindlers List. Alx told me this was the disinfecting of the clothes of the dead to be recycled. Whew, I thought to myself.


Next was the entrance of the waiting room, through to the area where the prisoners were told to undress to prepare for the “shower” and next the gas chamber. A very powerful room. It was stated this was never used, but prisoners have stated quite the opposite. The poisonous gas, Cyclone B, was in pellet form was dropped into the three vents in the chamber.


Next room was where the corpse’ were stacked to be moved to the crematorium. In the crematorium huge burners used coal to keep the fires burning during the cremation of the dead. In the center is where they hung the prisoners in part of the punishment.


As the camp became overcrowded and the death tolls rising, even the second crematorium could not keep up along with a shortage. Once the SS officers surrendered to the US Army, there were stacks of corpse’ that had yet to be burned. The documentary that we viewed showed actual footage of such scenes.


This memorial represents the stacking of the dead bodies of those that parished, I must say this is so minor to compared to the actual photos. This sculptor was very well done and I love the fact that it is there in your face; nothing to hide about it at all.

The main message that you take from this experience is “Never Again” and this statement has been created in a memorial along with many others.

I will never forget what I have experienced form this visit and as horrid as this part of world history is, I am still quite intrigued by it and thrive to learn more. Learning how such a regime came into power and fed off the weak was just as important to know. The museum started at the very beginning to the end. If any of our friends, family or those that that each of them have the chance to go to Germany, this is one stop you must include.