Today we took the short trip from Augsburg to visit the infamous Dachau concentration camp, which ran from 1933-1945. I came into the tour knowing the atmosphere would be incredibly heavy, but it really didn’t hit me until we visited the barracks. Luckily, our tour guide was phenomenal, and his clear explanations, opinions, and insights made the trip much more digestible for me. What caught me off guard was the sheer size of it. At times, barracks no larger than 20ft x 200 ft were packed with up to 2,000 prisoners. Multiply this by 30+ barracks, and you have a terrifying depiction of what this place looked like a mere 80 years ago.

Following our two-hour guided tour, I used that time to visit the Dachau museum/reflect. The gallery was filled with detailed depictions of survivor accounts, with a heavy focus on that American liberation that occurred on April 29th, 1945. It was then that American troops finally penetrated deep enough into Germany to truly embrace the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime. I enjoyed how the tour stayed “neutral”, while of course recognizing victims of Dachau. Retelling it in a straightforward, no-nonsense way allowed us as listeners to fully embrace the gravity of the camp, as well as derive our own insights. Overall, though hard at times to continually explore the camp, I am so glad I was able to experience such a horrible and important aspect of our world’s history.