Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial

A look inside Dachau Concentration Camp

“May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men” – inscription on a memorial at Dachau

CHILLING: The gate at the former Dachau concentration camp.

Prototype for misery

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they didn’t waste any time getting vicious.

They built Dauchau Concentration Camp, their first, that same year. It became the prototype for all Nazi death camps and they say about 43,000 people died here.

As shocking and soboring as it is the camp is well worth a visit, if only to come to grips with one of Munich’s darkest chapters.

Beyond the new visitor’s centre lies the old camp gates, emblazoned with the iron slogan Arbeit Macht Frei (Work sets you free).

Shocking insights

Around the corner there’s a well-presented museum in a former utility building. This attempts to explain the concentration camp system and how the Nazis came to power.

There’s a small cinema showing a 20min documentary film in another room. There’s also an exhibit on medical experiments performed on victims.

These included unnecessary surgery and seeing how long people could survive in freezing water before attempting to revive them with methods including electric shocks and body warmth provided by prostitutes.

MOVING: A sculpture depicting the victims.

You can also see a recreated barracks
where victims lived like proverbial sardines.

Among memorials at Dachau is one with Never Again written in five languages.

At the back of the site there’s a Jewish memorial, a Catholic chapel and a Protestant church.

They’re close to a crematorium which was used to burn the dead. There’s also a gas chamber here which was disguised as a shower block. The official line is that the chamber was never used.

Dachau concertration camp was ordered built by Munich police chief Heinrich Himmler, who later became the chief of the SS and Gestapo secret police.

WARNING: An inscription wall at the memorial.

Ample victims

Dachau Concentration Camp was official known as a “Protective custody camp”.

The memorial you see today was part of a much larger complex including stone mines and weapons factories.

Rampant disease and malnutrition accounted for most of the deaths here.

1945 was the deadliest year when over 500 Soviet Prisoners of War killed by firing squad alone.

More than 200,000 prisoners from over 30 countries were interned. Scores of them were sent on to larger concentration camps such as Auschwitz Berkinau. Many victims were Jews from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe.

Other victims included ethnic Roma (known as gypsies), homosexuals, communists, priests, several members of the Bavarian royal family and other Nazi opponents. American troops were stunned when they came to liberate the camp on April 29, 1945.

They were confronted by victims, barely beyond skeletons, 1,600 people in each of the barracks designed for 250.

LESSONS: The meuseum at the Dachau Concentration Camp traces the history of the slaughter.

Hard to grasp

I don’t think we can
grasp today just how overwhelming it must have been.

Some of the Americans were so disgusted they started shooting German camp guards after their surrender.

The official toll was 15, other reports suggest up
to 520 Germans were killed in retaliation.

Dachau later became a refugee camp for Czechoslovakian Germans kicked out after the war.

I’ve only been to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial once, and I felt so overwhelmed after 10 minutes of that bloody documentary film I had to get the hell out of there. It’s only by visiting paces like this that you understand how evil human beings can be to one another. Let’s hope that it happens “Never Again”.

Dachau memorial small group tour from Munich Cost: from €21 Duration: five hours This tour includes public transportation to and from the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial and a guided tour of the site. It's done in small groups. Highly recommended. (Read more about the tour)

Dachau memorial afternoon tour from Munich Cost: from €25 Duration: About 4.5 hours This tour provides an air-conditioned bus ride to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial. It doesn’t include a guided tour on site, but there is a guide who will accompany you there and back to provide information about the memorial. (Read more about the tour)

And here is the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial on the map.
If you have a chance to try and visit the town of Dachau as well. It's beautiful and has been a haven for artists for centuries - long before the Nazis came to be. There's a palace, Schloss Dachau, at the top of the hill.

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