Dachau

On our way back from Oktoberfest, we visited the Dachau concentration camp. Although I don’t want to say much about it, I would like to give some information on the camp, just to let you know how it differed from Auschwitz or some other concentration camp.

The Dachau concentration camp is located on the outskirts of the town of Dachau – one of the smaller northwest suburbs of Munich. It was the first camp of WWII and served as the prototype for the others that followed. Because it was the prototype, things here were held to higher standards, so to speak. Better records were kept; more stringent rules were imposed on the prisoners; more visits from high-ranking officials were conducted; etc.

To many, Dachau symbolized concentration camps.

The camp started imprisoning people in 1933, when Hitler came to power. Here is a picture of a poster from just before then, when the Germans (like many others in Europe and the U.S. at that time) were poor and starving due to depression-era economic issues. This poster reads: “Our last hope: Hitler”


But it wasn’t until later, in 1941, that Dachau was used for “extermination purposes” as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” Around this time, the camp – and many others – became exceedingly overcrowded with prisoners and keeping them alive as prisoners became less important than exterminating them, whether through arbitrary murder or experiments. Here is a picture of the reconstructed beds that the prisoners slept on. Dachau was constructed to hold about 5,000 prisoners, but toward the end it held over 30,000.

In terms of experiments, the Russian prisoners of war were the most popular victims. Two experiments we read about were seeing how long victims could live while immersed ice water or in vacuum chambers.

None of this was really known, however, until April 29, 1945, when the U.S. Army’s 42nd Infantry Division freed the prisoners here. Disgusted by what they saw, the U.S. troops forced the local citizens to help clean the facilities; but this request was met with indignance, as the locals claimed no knowledge of the camp’s activities.



Although a lot of people think holocaust equals Jewish intolerance, but really there were many other religions, races, and types of people who were segregated as well: Gypsies, Poles, Soviets, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, dissidents, the disabled, etc. Yes, the Jews were target #1, but the total amount of concentration-camp death is estimated at 6 million Jews and 4.5 million non-Jews.

It is said gay men suffered the worst treatment, not only from German soldiers, but also from other prisoners who may have seen a way to gain favor by disrespecting an easy target.


Overall, my impression of the place is that it was more sterile and hollow than I expected. Almost void of feeling. Especially this room, the “Brausebad” or shower bath, where prisoners would have been gassed after being told they were going to be showered.


It wasn’t as emotional as a trip to the Holocaust museum or even as emotional as a PBS documentary would be. But, regardless, it was an educational experience for us – just a weird, stark contrast to Oktoberfest.