Dachau Concentration Camp

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I was in Munich in the spring of 2012 and had wanted to go to Dachau if I had just been there one more day.  My paternal grandfather was part of one of the first Army troops to reach it at the end of the World War II.  He never spoke about being in the military and I thought this would be an important way to remember the service he provided.  


I did not take a tour to the site, but rather went by myself with the public transportation -- first with the train and then hopping onto a bus.  

 It looked a lot like I had imagined it -- barren, stark, extremely orderly.  The train truly had been routed to the front door.  


They had leveled a number of the barracks, but left two so you could get a sense of scale.  By the end of the war, the camp which had been built for 6,000 people, held over 30,000.  The barracks were overcrowded and food was in scarce supply.  
Four different religious memorials have been built within the site: Russian Orthodox, Christian, Catholic and Jewish.  I was surprised to find out that over 35% of the occupants of Dachau were from Poland including a number of Catholic priests.  Over 50% of all Polish priests were murdered during the Holocaust.  

Catholic memorial

The "walk" -- in all of the pictures, these trees were quite small!

Approximately ten years ago, they added a museum to the site.  I thought it was really well done.  I learned a lot about the camps and the history of this one in particular.  Dachau had been founded in ~1932 for political prisoners.  It was used as the model for all other camps and was the longest running camp within the system.  
As I stated earlier, this camp had a number of different types of prisoners, including Poles, Jews, "political dissidents", and other undesireables.  Within the population, there was a strict hierarchy.  The Jewish people were at the bottom of the hierarchy and often given the worst, most physical demanding and demeaning jobs.  They were the first to have their food withheld.  It really helped to understand how so many of the Jews were murdered or died in the camps.

This was really worthwhile stop to make. I am very grateful for the time I was able to spend there.

 


 Times visited: 1
Time in historical place: 2+ hrs
Overall: A-
Location: Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, Alte Römerstraße 75, 85221 Dachau, Germany

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