Iberia Business Class Between Chicago and Munich
The Kimpton DeWitt, Amsterdam
AIM: Our Time in Amsterdam
The Sheraton Amsterdam Airport Hotel and Conference Center
The Radisson Blu 1919, Reykjavik
The Center Hotel Plaza, Reykjavik
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part I
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part II
AIM: Our Time in Iceland, Part III
The aloft Munich
AIM: Our Time at Dachau
AIM: Our Time in Munich
The Hilton Munich Airport
I'm not a huge history buff but I do find that visiting historical sites puts things in context for me better than reading about them. I was a little apprehensive (? not sure that's the right word) about visiting the site of the former concentration camp at Dachau but I thought it was important to see and I am very glad I went.
Just as a refresher, Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp to open and it was created in 1933, several years before the official start of World War II in 1939. The grounds once housed an abandoned munitions factory in the town of Dachau which is about 16 km northwest of Munich. It was an easy 25-minute train ride followed by a 10-minute bus ride from our hotel.
Even before the war the camp was used to house protective-custody prisoners from a prison in Munich and the Landsberg fortress. In 1935, after laws were passed to institutionalize racial discrimination Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals and immigrants were sent to Dachau. In 1937-38 the prisoners were used as labor to enlarge the complex to house 6000 prisoners. Yet in the 1938-1940 timeframe over 24,000 prisoners of various nationalities, ethnicities and religious beliefs were sent to live at the camp.
The camp was liberated on April 29, 1945 by US troops. They found over 30,000 prisoners, many already sick with typhus. Two thousand cases had been reported by May 3rd as the troops worked to alleviate the conditions. Six months later the camp was being used to house war criminals, members of the SS and important witnesses. In 1948 the Bavarian government established refugee housing in this location which lasted until the mid-1960s.
The Memorial
Entrance
Visiting the site you first stop in the information center. Touring the site is free but you can join a guided tour or rent an audio guide quite cheaply, less than 5 EUR each. Then you walk down a lovely wooded path. It seems such a calm, happy place until you look to your left and see the remains of a railroad spur.
This was literally the end of the line, where boxcars full of prisoners left the train, crossed the path you're standing on and continued to your right through this gatehouse.
The wrought-iron gate says "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Makes [One] Free". As Dachau was the first camp, many of its characteristics, including this gate, were copied at other camps, like Auschwitz.
Grounds
Upon entering the gate, to the left are where the barracks once stood. While there are a couple of reconstructed barracks still standing, the others were razed. Their concrete bases remain. The barracks take you through the progression of how the prisoners lived throughout the camp years. In the early days the bunk beds were only two-high but by the end the bunks were four-high and wall-to-wall. Prisoners had to climb out over the footboards to exit their bunks and if someone got sick, they may have to wallow in their own filth and it might have dripped on to the bunks below. Just horrible conditions.
At the far end of the property to the left there are Jewish, Protestant and Catholic memorial chapels. Just behind the wall is a Catholic Nunnery that existed even during the war.
The camp's wall were solid in places with a 10-foot neutral zone in front of them. Guards were known to grab prisoners' hats and throw them into the neutral zone where the prisoners would either need to let the cap stay or go after it, knowing they'd be shot. Some prisoners chose to enter that zone to end their own suffering. Guard towers like this one were at each corner and at various points along each side of the camp.
At least one wall was not solid but this electrified barbed-wire fence borders the river Amper.
Crematorium
Following the property all the way to the back wall and then turning left, there is a strangely pretty section of the grounds close to the two crematoria. I assume those buildings were set apart from the main portion of the grounds due to the smell.But before reaching those buildings there's a path off to the right leading to several burial memorial sites. This one is represents the Grave of Many Thousands of Unknowns for Christians.
Here's the Jewish Grave of Many Thousands of Unknowns.
The marker here states that this was known as the Trench of Blood for the number of executions that took place here.
This was the first crematorium building, built in 1940. Just one year later its capacity had been exceeded due to the increased number of prisoners arriving and the climbing mortality rate. Before its closure in 1943, approximately 11,000 prisoners had been cremated here.
The new crematorium building was much larger and consisted of several rooms. This was an intake room where corpses were stacked until they could be put in the ovens.
There were more ovens in this new building and they were deeper so that two bodies at a time could be cremated. But by 1944 the camp's death rate was such that capacity had once again been exceeded.
Although Dachau had a "shower" room like the one made famous in Auschwitz, it was never used. Even with the doors open on each side it was still spooky standing in there.
As you may imagine, prisoners clothing was often infected by disease and insects when they arrived, while they lived and after death. This chamber was used to disinfect their clothing with prussic acid. Once that was accomplished vents on the roof cleared the air before the doors were opened.
Maintenance Building
On the right of the entrance is the U-shaped maintenance building. This houses the permanent and temporary exhibits. There is a lot of information in the displays and photos. There's also a small theater that runs a 20-minute documentary with footage from the camp during and immediately after the war. If you visit, be sure to check the schedule as the narration is in different languages over the course of the day. It is not suitable for children under 14.This area is where prisoners were processed upon arriving at the camp. I found it so ironic that with all the horrors going on in the camp, the No Smoking sign (Kauchen Verboten) was prominently displayed on the wall. (Though perhaps this was left over from the building's days as a munitions factory?)
The original gate to the camp is stored behind glass in the museum.
If you were a "special" prisoner, such as Johann Georg Else, the man who tried to assassinate Hitler, you might be held in one of these larger cells in the maintenance building. At least here you had your own sink and possibly a toilet.
If you'd been an especially troublesome prisoner you might be assigned to a "standing cell". In the space below, partitions were added to create areas about 2.5 feet square, just narrow enough that you can't sit down and so were forced to stand. A prisoner might be left in one of these cells for up to 72 hours (3 days) at a time. Once the camp was liberated, American forces removed the partitions.
In the yard behind the maintenance building we saw the these posts. Prisoners would be chained to these posts and stripped down in icy weather as the camp doctors performed medical experiments. In the last days of the camp, most of the medical records were destroyed as officials tried to hide the atrocities they had performed on the prisoners.
Outdoor Exhibits
Between the barracks and the maintenance building is a large gravel area. During the camp's active days this was where roll call was performed. Today there are a number of memorial exhibits.Never Again
The wall contains the words Never Again in Hebrew, French, English, German and Russian. The concrete box contains the remains of an unknown prisoner.
The Patch Relief
Each prisoner had a patch indicating what type of prisoner they were. There were a number of "officially recognized" groups who were there based on their political view, race or religion. Yet the camp had thousands of other prisoners with different-colored patches to indicate they were "criminal prisoners", homosexual or "asocial". This relief uses the badges representing the “officially recognized” prisoners.
International Memorial
At first this sculpture appears to be a tangle of iron but if you look closely you'll see it represents human skeletons on a barbed wire fence.
The other part of the International Memorial is this inscription in several languages:
May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945 because of their fight against National Socialism unite the living in their defense of peace and freedom and in reverence of human dignity.
Notable Prisoners
As we left the crematorium I saw this plaque dedicated to four women of the British forces who were murdered in the camp and whose bodies were cremated. I had never heard their stories before and they are fascinating. The women were all captured in nearby occupied portions of France as they worked for the Special Operations Executive branch of the British military.
- Yolande Beekman, a British wireless/telegraph operator
- Madeleine Damerment, a French courier who was captured after parachuting into German-occupied France
- Noor Inayat Khan, a British wireless/telegraph operator born in Moscow of Indian heritage
- Eliane Plewman, who worked as a British field agent
Khan’s story will be told in the 2019 film “Liberté: A Call to Spy”.
Over 2700 priests (2579 Catholic) were held in the camp as was a Nobel Prize winner. Ten members of German royalty were imprisoned though all survived. Two of those members, Franz, Duke of Bavaria and Prince Max, Duke in Bavaria, are still living.
Liberation
As the Allied forces moved to liberate several of the camps, thousands of prisoners were executed or sent on death marches before they could arrive. The camp was officially turned over to US forces on 29 April 1945.
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