How many more are there we don't know about? ...how many more without a name?

In March of 1933 in a small town in southern Germany named Dachau a man named Adolph Hitler opened what was termed a ‘concentration camp.’ Over the course of the next decade hundreds more of these camps would be opened across Europe with Dachau serving as the prototype and model for the others that followed…

Words can never express the depth of emotion I felt on Saturday morning when I took a trip to that small town in Germany, to that camp…

Amy, Lindsay, and Kelsie wanted to take a tour of some castle in the Alps (apparently it’s the one Walt Disney based his Sleeping Beauty castle off of). Although this sounded like fun we only had limited time in Munich and I didn’t fancy spending four hours on a train to go see some castle (it was two hours both ways just to get there and back!) Also, I was interested in visiting Dachau, especially given my background in history and particular interest in World War II.

Amy had found an all-English guided tour that brought us from the train station in Munich to Dachau and then gave us a guided tour of the camp- overall the tour was over five hours! Though it was only about a ten-minute train ride to Dachau and then another ten-minute bus ride. So the three other girls went to look at a castle and I went to see where Hitler’s “final solution” truly began.

In the days leading up to my tour I spent some time trying to mentally prepare myself for what I would see and feel once at the camp. As we took the short train ride to the camp I prepared myself for the rush of tears I was sure would come once I stepped foot in the camp… once the true emotion of what happened there hit me. Our tour guide immediately pointed out how the camp is just off the main road of Dachau- He posed the question, “Did the locals know the camp was here?” “Yes, they couldn’t have missed it.” But he also explained how well the Nazi propaganda had led the locals to believe it was something completely different from what it was. How the SS Soldiers had actually invited them to see the camp as they set up mach portrayals of the camp, basically using the prisoners as actors. Still I had to wonder- did these townspeople really not know what was going on there?

The original building that served as the main entrance into the concentration camp.

We walked the same road the prisoners walked to the camp’s entrance and already I could feel the emotion welling up inside of me. We stood outside the original building that is the entrance to the camp with the phrase “Arbeit Macht Frei” on the prison’s gates – translated literally in English as “Work Makes (one) Free.”

I expected to step through those gates and immediately burst into tears… but I didn’t. In fact though there were times when I cried some, there was never a point where I really bawled like I honestly expected to. At first I didn’t understand… How could this not affect me- am I that cold a person, why am I not crying?

One of the statues in the Museum that is at the site.

And then I understood. Even as I stood there and saw what I saw, heard what I heard, understood as I understood- I could never fully comprehend the depth of what was before me, the depth of what had happened there. If I were to be able to fully comprehend it all, I never would have stopped crying…

We walked through the gates and entered the prison and I suddenly became very aware of the ground I was walking on… because I suddenly began to think of all the prisoners who had walked on that same ground.

The main square of the camp where roll call was taken every day. The camp was originally built for 4-5,000 prisoners, by the time of it's liberation it held nearly 40,000 men.

The camp was originally built for a capacity of 4,000 – 5,000 political prisoners; by the time of its liberation it held over 40,000 prisoners of all types.

There were originally about thirty barracks but after liberation they were knocked down. When the camp became a memorial they rebuilt a set of barracks to show the visitors what they were like. They actually did a good job of showing the transformation of the camp from 1933 as a prison for political prisoners to the full-blown concentration camp it was by 1945. The barracks were set up so that each room represented a different period of the camp’s time.

At the beginning the barrack rooms actually provided a lot of space for the prisoners with about fifty men in each room... by the end 500 were crammed into this same sized room.

The first room was set up to house about 50 men and they actually had quite a bit of space with a small “common area” of benches set up.

By the end the barrack rooms that were supposed to house 50 men now held over 500.

By 1944 when the camp was liberated that same sized room now held over 500 men…

After the barracks we were taken to the prison cells in which there were about 140 in a row. Before heading into that building though we stopped in an alleyway type of space between what used to be the main building of the camp and the prison cells.

The courtyard between the main building and the prisons... the place where punishments and executions were carried out.

Here is where our tour guide talked about the executions and torture that occurred at the camp… he looked around at where we stood in this small space between the two buildings: “Here are where the executions and torture took place,” he said. And then he pointed to the wall behind us, the wall no one had even noticed before, the wall that was riddled with bullet holes. I thought I was going to be sick.

The prison cells at the camp. Used mainly for punishment and then to house "high profile" prisoners.

We walked through the prison and got to hear about some of the more “notable” prisoners they kept there. Among them were mainly priests and rabbis but also was a man who had tried to assassinate Hitler and other political prisoners.

Illuminations they put on walls of certain prison cells with quotes from survivors. "Around two o'clock in the morning the key rattles in the lock of the first cell door at the other end of the corridor. We're all awake at once. The unlocked metallic f

In some of the cells they had put paper over the window so that it was dark and they beamed a light on the wall with quotes from prisoners who had survived the camp… each more gut wrenching then the one before it.

After seeing the prison cells we watched a twenty-minute movie about the camp that basically relayed everything our tour guide had told us but this time with actual footage and pictures from the camp. In this darkened theater is where I cried for the first time. After the movie we took about a half hour to spend in the memorial’s museum, which was set up in what used to be the camp’s main building.

It was actually very emotional being at the camp on Fourth of July- obviously such a notable day back home in America. As our tour guide mentioned the camp’s liberation by U.S. troops, and as I read about it in the museum, I was never more proud to be an American. Yes, we were not the only ones fighting in the war. Yes, it was not solely us who made the liberation possible. But yes, it was American troops who walked through the camp’s gates in 1945 to bring liberation to the camp that had been open for twelve years. Standing in the museum, reading about the camp’s liberation and first-hand accounts from both the liberators and the prisoners being liberated, I began to cry again.

After visiting the museum our guide spent some time discussing the camp’s actual memorial.

The sculpture in the center is supposed to represent the twisted bodies of the dead, while the posts represent the prison’s walls.

The memorial: the statue in the middle is to represent the twisted bodies of the dead, the pillars represent the fence that kept them imprisoned in the camp, the gravel in front represents where the prisoners had to go each day for roll call.

The two blocks of gravel in front of the memorial represent the place where the prisoners had to walk for roll call everyday- often so sick and hungry that simply walking to the location was a feat in itself.

Part of the memorial- the sign reads "Never Again" in five different languages. This is the main theme throughout the memorial.

To the left of the memorial is a stone wall that holds the ashes of some of the prisoners who died at the camp- on the wall in five different languages reads the message: Never Again. The main theme throughout the entire memorial.

The colors of all the different triangles represent the different countries present in the camp, they're connected to represent the solidarity between the prisoners, the chain that links the three circles together represents their imprisonment in the camp

We then walked down the long road that used to house all the barracks to the back of the camp. The walk only took us three, maybe five minutes.

The walk from the last barracks to the front where roll call took place each day. For us it was a simple three minute walk- now imagine being starved and sick and having to complete this walk...

When we got to the end our tour guide had us turn around and look at the distance we had travelled. “Not long at all, right?” he said. “Now imagine walking that distance in the snow, the rain, the cold. Imagine walking starved from not eating properly for weeks, months, years. Imagine walking it sick, injured, dying.” I thought about it, I looked at that distance, I tried to imagine… and I cried once again.

At the end of the camp are four different memorials. One for the Catholics, one for the Jewish, one for the Russian Orthodox, and one for the Protestants.

The protestant memorial at Dachau. The architect purposely avoided right angels because he said the prisoners constantly had to live in that rigid 'right angle' atmosphere.

The Protestant memorial captured me the most because the building held very few, if any, 90-degree angels. The architect specifically avoided them because he said the prisoners lived their lives in that “right angle” mentality. They had to do everything just so, had to take orders from the guards, had to live their lives in that strict pattern. So the architect avoided the ‘strict pattern’ of right angels.

Our tour guide showed us a re-creation done of the security measures on the camp.

A re-creation of the 'security measures' at the camp. If any person stepped on the grass they were immediately shot from the guard tower- many stepped onto the grass as an act of suicide.

He explained that if a prisoner even stepped foot on the grass they would immediately be shot dead with no questions asked. He then explained how many soldiers would purposely step onto the grass if only to end their own agony.

The last part of the tour was by far the hardest. We walked over a small bridge that went over a small stream of water and it was so peaceful you almost forgot where you were for a minute. Then you continued walking and you hit the sign: “Krematorium.” Right, I remember now.

We saw the old crematoriums first, the one’s held in a small shed that only had two.

The 'new' crematorium that was built after there were too many bodies for the original crematorium.

The ones they used before they could no longer ‘keep up’ with the amount of bodies. Then we saw the long building that held the new crematoriums- the crematoriums that the prisoners themselves had to build. The crematoriums that sat right next to the newly built gas chambers, also built by the prisoners.

Our guide explained how the gas chambers worked- he showed us where the chemicals were put in and where the soldiers looked through to see if everyone had been killed.

The mechanics behind the gas chamber. Some claim the gas chamber was never used at Dachau, however others believe this is unlikely.

He explained it all but what he could not explain was the questions that had been eating me up inside all morning- How could this happen?! How could the guards do this?! How was it not stopped sooner?! Our tour guide could not answer these questions… nobody can answer these questions. And so I entered the building with the most important questions forever unanswered.

I saw where the mechanics for the gas chambers were held. I saw the room where the prisoners waited to be brought in to the “showers” the guards claimed they were going to, and then I saw the gas chambers.

The gas chamber at Dachau- I literally thought I was going to be physically sick upon entering this room. By far the saddest, hardest part of the tour.

I walked in to the small concrete room, with the ceilings so much lower than everywhere else, and I truly thought I was going to be sick. It’s a feeling I have never felt before, a feeling I can never describe, a feeling I prey I never feel again.

I walked to the next room, the room where the dead bodies were brought after being in the gas chamber. I walked past that to the ‘new’ crematoriums and then I walked to the final room where bodies were piled when there were too may to be burned. The sick feeling, though not as intense, came back.

Our tour guide explained that after liberating the camp the U.S. troops were so angry at the local townspeople for allowing this to happen that they brought them to the camp to see the bodies. During the film we saw the locals being brought into this same room where bodies were piled in the corners- the look of pure shock and horror as they left that room was a sight I will never forget. I feel as though every person who leaves that room has that same look in some very small way.

Men in the barracks at the time of their liberation by U.S. forces.

Dachau was liberated on April 29, 1945 by U.S. troops. A recorded 30,000 people died during the camps twelve-year existence. However the camp had been open for several years before deaths began to be recorded and many deaths were not considered “worth” reporting. For instance, no Jewish person killed was reported nor were many executions. The estimated total deaths are 40,000- many people go as high as 120,000. Some say a quarter million people died at Dachau- its very possible that number is not far off from the true total.

A few years ago they decided to dig up the mass graves that lay behind the camp in an effort to identify the bodies. Between the two mass graves there were nearly 7,500 bodies- only 200 could be identified.

As I left the concentration camp I knew that those five hours spent within its walls would leave me changed forever. I looked at the pictures I took and tried to think how I could use this experience in my future classrooms. I tired to think how I could explain my experience here, how I could make others understand and I realized I couldn’t because even I don’t understand. Even now I don’t believe the full depth of everything I saw and felt at the camp has hit me, I’m not sure it ever fully will or ever fully can.

I left the camp proud to be an American, proud of our soldiers who liberated the camp sixty-four years ago. I left the camp thinking of those 30,000, 41,000, 120,000, people we were too late to save.

Liberated April 29, 1945; Memorial dedicated May 3, 1992. Bless those who liberated this camp and those who we were not able to save.

I also left the camp ashamed, ashamed to be a world citizen who allowed such an atrocity to occur. I left the camp thinking of those 30,000, 41,000, 120,000, people we were too late to save and I prayed it would never happen again. Then I thought of the atrocities currently happening in the world and I wondered if we would ever learn from our past…

written by

kmr788 on July 6, 2009 from Dachau, Germany

from the travel blog: Dublin, Ireland

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