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Dachau: Solemn Holocaust Memorial
Germany

Entrance of the Dachau

As a child, I recall seeing a movie on the Holocaust and later in life I visited the Holocaust Memorial museum in Washington, D.C. One desolate image remained vivid in my mind. Large numbers of skeletal bodies staring through a woven metal fence right back at me. I couldn’t imagine how people could be treated so crudely and for what purpose.

In June, I placed myself on the other side of the fence with a visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp.

In the middle of lush green farmland of Dachau, a suburb of Munich, sits a reminder of Dachau Concentration Camp, where more than 200,000 prisoners were housed and another 30,000 people perished.

Considered the model camp for German visitors to see how a concentration camp system functioned during World War II, today, the camp is a memorial site.

Each year on April 29, survivors return to celebrate the day of liberation at the camp and place large floral wreaths in front of the main building. This year drew more 1,200 survivors back for the 60^th anniversary.

Ironically, no birds fly over the camp or sing there. The only noise heard are the crushing, echoing sounds of tiny gray pebbles under my footsteps as I walk the paths trod by Dachau prisoners.

My tour begins outside the barbed-wire fence surrounding the camp, near a set of rusty railroad tracks embedded in loose gray gravel and a red cobblestone pathway.

This pathway led thousands of people to the front gate, a red-roofed building, inscribed with the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” – “Work Makes You Free.”

Although the tracks were never used, says the tour guide, behind the entry point on the other side of a chain link fence stands a well-kept cream-colored building, formerly the office of the Gestapo.

Approximately four original buildings remain in the camp, including some guard towers. Many buildings became dilapidated over time and were eventually torn down. After the war, 5,000 German refugees occupied them.

Inside the gate, prisoners were lined up in the Appellplatz, a large open area, for roll call each morning and evening. My group and I stand there, the sun beaming down on us; huddle together shielding the heated rays from our faces. Prisoners entered through the side entrance of the camp’s headquarters’ building for in processing, collection of personal papers and clothing, plus physicals and a haircut.

Uniforms worn by the prisoners

The tour guide explains that prisoners where beaten if they did not answer the German officers when questioned, though many did not understand the language. Through a network of prisoners, the barbers made sure that when the next group arrived there would be a barber there to interpret the language to prevent further beatings or killings. This was also how messages were passed on from the outside.

Today, the u-shaped headquarters building is the Dachau museum, which contains more than 14,500 documents and photographs with a library of more than 5,000 books. A few artifacts are on exhibit, such as a blue and gray striped uniform hanging in a closet; a desk that once held camp records and a whipping table.

Above the whipping table are metal hooks once used to suspend prisoners from the arched ceiling equally spaced in arched doorways. Below the hooks is a glass case with illustrations of the hangings, bringing to life the purpose of the room.

Shivers pass through my body, I can’t help but wonder. Why?

Directly behind the main building is the bunker or Zellenbau – a cold, desolate prison for VIP prisoners held in private cells, some were standing cells.

The crematorium and gas chambers building is to the left of the front gate. Solemn walks are taken along a path of 15 rectangular stone beds where barracks once stood. Two barracks have been reconstructed for a closer look at the cramped living quarters imposed on the prisoners.

I can’t imagine walking these paths with bare feet as many prisoners went without shoes or socks. My feet ache from wearing boots, the constant sliding against the small grey pebbles. I say a prayer for the lost souls here.

A large wooden bridge known as the tourist gate, covered in barbed wire, crosses a reconstructed moat to the entrance of the crematorium area. Still in its original state, I can visualize cart’s wheels rolling over the uneven wood slates � an eerie feeling settles in.

The new crematorium, as it’s called, has four fumigation gas chambers and the old one has double ovens. Today, each building is surrounded by a picturesque sanctuary of blooming trees, flowers and singing birds.

I am not happy walking in the sanctuary as my eyes focus in on a small vent just outside of the red brick building and then to the smoke stack on top.

The guide says beneath the gravel of the paths we’ve walked thus far lies a layer of sand and beneath the sand lays a layer of ashes from the crematorium, because there were too much to haul to another location.

We head inside; the walls are stark and clean though evidence still lies there. We are quickly ushered away from what we believe as gas chambers into a room with murky green paint. On the opposite wall, a painted glass window calls my attention, I sincerely believe and as many agree with me it was an observatory of some sort.

A sign over the door needs no explanation to the next room. There are no windows, small vents and a large shower fixture in the ceiling. One door heading inside and another heading out to a roped off area; I stare in awe at the brown brick ovens with brass closures on display.

Our tour guide goes as far as to demonstrate how the ovens were built to hold the heat. Can anyone imagine the smell? Time spent in that room is brief for most of us, until our eyes focus on the last room.

Cold place

We realize we’ve seen this room before in a 20-minute documentary, a prelude to the tour, offered every day 11:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. in English. The room where American soldiers found hundreds of stacked skeletal bodies.

I highly recommend the documentary – it will explain a lot of what I experienced there.

Protestant, Catholic, Russian and Jewish memorials as well as a convent dedicated to those who perished at Dachau.

Admission to the memorial site and museum is free. Dachau’s memorial site is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and closed Mondays, Christmas Day and Yom Kippur.

As I leave the gated fence of the memorial site, my heart is heavy though words can not express the feelings that swell up inside of me. I understand more having visited there, though the image is still clear and vivid…thank God for those lives that were eventually set free from there.