Today we visited the Dachau concentration camp.

I had always felt that the opportunity to visit Dachau would be one of, if not the most important and sobering part of this trip. I still feel this way, as it can be easy to feel distanced from the gravity of such a horrific period in global history when you are simply learning about it and do not have the opportunity to physically visit a site where such terrible things happened.

Walking through the camp’s gates, with the saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work sets you free) frequently used by the Nazis spelled in the metal bars, I immediately felt a very haunting feeling. Although Dachau was not a “death camp” (it primarily held Hitler’s political enemies and, while it had a gas chamber, it was never used), at least 40,000 people died there after being worked and starved to death. Knowing all of the death, suffering, and inhumanity that occurred there was overwhelming, but very important. Seeing the conditions that prisoners lived in was shocking and upsetting, as at times two or three men had to share a troughed wooden bed meant to fit only one person.

At the end of the tour, our guide stressed the importance of visiting historical places like Dachau so that our generation, and those after us, do not repeat the horrors that happened during the Holocaust.

This was a very impactful and important part of the trip for everyone, and I am so glad that I was able to learn more about Dachau and the Holocaust as a whole.

– Juliana Alvelo-Davies