Dachau

Before my friends came to visit, they asked me what I hadn't done yet that I wanted to do with a group of people...the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site visit was one of those things. I had originally planned to visit the memorial last year in July when the Hub and I were here on vacation-well before we had an inkling that we would be living here. He was in meetings and I was left to explore the city for several days. At the time, I thought that it would be the only time that I would be close to one of the camp memorials, so I should go...it ended up that I caught a bug and stayed in bed at the hotel that entire day, missing the day and the visit to the camp.


What you see at the memorial site is the main museum, the bunker behind it and a restored set of barracks. The footprint of the other barracks remains, but not the buildings themselves. You also see a tree-lined avenue which leads you down to shrines and the crematorium. Surprisingly, you also see school kids. A lot of them. All German school children are required to visit a concentration camp and they are taught the truth of this difficult piece of history and study it head-on, so that they are aware and so that it never happens again.



There are so many facts to learn and emotions that one feels in this place, but not the space to do them justice here. It was on a dreary day that we visited the memorial, the buildings felt chilly inside and the weather seemed fitting the mood and somber tone of the visit. The memorial is full of historical information: articles, first hand accounts and pictures. The many visitors before us had systematically scratched the face off of every image of Hitler...as penance? Because of dislike or shame? I don't know, but thought that it was interesting nonetheless.

This is the sign that you see first, at the edge of the road to the site. It is translated below in italics:“Dachau-the significance of this name will never be erased from German history. It stands for all concentration camps which the Nazis established in their territory”

Eugen Kogon


(Eugen Kogon was a political prisoner at the Buchenwald camp from 1939-1945. After the war, he wrote "The Theory and Practice of Hell.")


When you enter the memorial site, you enter the way the prisoners did. You walk through the entry rooms where the people were cataloged and stripped-of their belongings, their hair and their dignity. In the iron works that every person walks through...whether they were the prisoners or the modern day visitors...are the words "Work makes you free".

"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"

The remaining barracks:

The tree-lined way to the shrines. At each tree there would have been another set of barracks...

We indeed had a somber visit but I am glad that we went...at work I used to tell my General Managers that the hard lessons are always the ones that you remember...this serves as a global "hard lesson" indeed-but one that makes us remember, respect and honor.