Today was a difficult day because we visited the concentration camp Dachau. We had only this on the schedule today to allow us time to reflect on what we were about to see. I thought that I would have been better prepared for this visit because I enjoy history, I like watching documentaries, and reading about things of the past. I would like to believe I have a strong grasp of the events of World War II as my grandfather served and his service sort of fueled my interest. I was wrong. When I was looking this stuff up on the internet or watching a documentary I never truly grasped how they were living and the conditions in which they were living. How could I? I learned about this from the comfort of my living room with anything I needed only a short walk away. You can not understand the living conditions until you actually see them with your own two eyes and you walk in the same spots that the prisoners walked in almost 80 years ago. Sorry for the rant.
The first thing we did on our tour of Dachau is pass through a gate that says “arbeit macht frei” or “work sets you free”. I half chuckled at reading this knowing that this was a lie. After passing through the gate we found ourselves in the main courtyard. This is where roll call was done, and prisoners were forced to stand at attention for long periods of time. Behind this courtyard were the prisoner’s barracks. 34 total barracks were in use but now only two remain to act as a memorial of the living conditions. Dachau was originally built to house six thousand prisoners but at the time of liberation it held thirty thousand prisoners. This overcrowding caused rampant disease and hunger causing the deaths of many. At the end of the rows of barracks now stand 4 religious memorials for those who died here. One Catholic, one Jewish, one Protestant, and one Russian Orthodox.
The next area on our tour was the crematorium. I want to make something clear just as our tour guide did to us. Dachau was not an extermination camp. Even though many died for a myriad of reasons, its primary purpose was to operate as a work camp. Dachau did have a gas chamber but it was never used. The description of the gas chamber talks about it as a potential location for mass murder not actual mass murder.
The final stop on the tour for me was where they held prisoners in solitary confinement.
Prisoners who were held here were kept in complete darkness and fed only every fourth day. Here is a quote from one who was imprisoned here “Four months, four months detention in darkness, four months with hot food only every fourth day! Time crawls by. I only count every fourth day, and I am amazed when the food comes and wakes me up. I am in a state of trance”. Writing this down now has a more profound impact on me than it did when reading it there. I guess I was desensitized after seeing the rest of the camp before. When I was finished with that building I went to see some other memorials and one stuck with me. A lot can be said about Dachau and the concentration camp system, but this memorial kept it simple. Never Again. That’s all that it said.
This visit to Dachau was an eye-opening experience. We cannot change the past, but we can use the past as a guideline for the future.