mach mich dumm, damit ich nicht nach Dachau kumm...
dear god...make me dumb, that i may not to dachau come...
If you're looking for a leisurely, carefree holiday in Munich, you should probably avoid Dachau Concentration Camp. It's dark and unsettling and, on more than one occasion, overwhelming.
But I wouldn't skip it. In fact, I recommend making a day's trip out of it, giving yourself plenty of time to read through all of the signs and taking moments of silence where need be. And then you might attempt to end the day by sitting in pensive silence over a beer at your neighborhood biergarten.
I'm not the best person to memorize bits of facts from museums, but I'll give it a shot.
Dachau was the first concentration camp. Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were detained here. Economists,communists, musicians, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.
The gate through which the prisoners entered contains these words in wrought iron: "arbeit macht frei," which means "work liberates." Sick irony, no?
Pictured below is a monument of skeletal bodies stretched and entangled.
Then there were the pole hangings. For punishment, prisoners would be hung on poles in the public bathing room.
Execution was a whole other story. This building is the crematorium, placed just outside of the prisoners' grounds, so that they wouldn't know where the dead bodies were being taken.
Here are the incinerators. Prisoners died in hordes from exhaustion, starvation, disease, execution...
And on that note, the crematorium was the site for several types of execution. Here, there are grooves on the beams from which prisoners were hanged. They died gazing at the incinerator where their bodies would be burned.
And here's a photo of the "shower room," which we all know by now is the gas chamber. No mass killings actually ever occurred in the gas chamber...but there were executions performed here. Also shown: a photo of a photo of a pile of dead bodies.
Finally, this is the firing wall. Located right next to the wild game area. The perfect disguise, I suppose. And below the wall is the blood ditch.
Speaking of disguises, I was intrigued to learn that foreign journalists and diplomats actually did visit Dachau during the war. For these trips, the administrators of the camp would put up a front showing that the camp was more like a fun, recreational place. There was a soccer field and a swimming pool. The visitors were fooled into believing that the prisoners lived in comfort. In fact, the Germans were fooled into believing that the prisoners had a better life in the camp than they did.
Somber and depressing, sure, but it's history. Wasn't it Churchill who said that those who fail to learn from it are doomed to repeat it?
dear god...make me dumb, that i may not to dachau come...
If you're looking for a leisurely, carefree holiday in Munich, you should probably avoid Dachau Concentration Camp. It's dark and unsettling and, on more than one occasion, overwhelming.
But I wouldn't skip it. In fact, I recommend making a day's trip out of it, giving yourself plenty of time to read through all of the signs and taking moments of silence where need be. And then you might attempt to end the day by sitting in pensive silence over a beer at your neighborhood biergarten.
I'm not the best person to memorize bits of facts from museums, but I'll give it a shot.
Dachau was the first concentration camp. Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were detained here. Economists,communists, musicians, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.
The gate through which the prisoners entered contains these words in wrought iron: "arbeit macht frei," which means "work liberates." Sick irony, no?
Pictured below is a monument of skeletal bodies stretched and entangled.
Seven watchtowers surrounded the grounds. Then there was the electrocuted fence that ran around the grounds. Electrocuted barbed wire. And a ditch before the fence. Those who crossed the ditch were shot on sight. There was really no way of escape. Prisoners did, however, run into the ditch as a quick means of ending the suffering.
Many types of punishment were administered on prisoners who stepped out of line. And by "stepping out of line," what I really mean is, "leaving the bedsheets slightly wrinkled" or something similarly inane. There were ridiculous housekeeping rules set up with the sole purpose of torturing prisoners for slight mistakes.
But anyway. The punishments. One type of punishment was solitary isolation in total darkness. Another, sentencing to the standing cell: grown men would be forced into a 2.5 x 2.5 foot cell, too small to sit, for three days. Occasionally, they were sentenced for even longer periods. One guy, I read, stood in there for ten days.
Then there were the pole hangings. For punishment, prisoners would be hung on poles in the public bathing room.
Execution was a whole other story. This building is the crematorium, placed just outside of the prisoners' grounds, so that they wouldn't know where the dead bodies were being taken.
Here are the incinerators. Prisoners died in hordes from exhaustion, starvation, disease, execution...
And on that note, the crematorium was the site for several types of execution. Here, there are grooves on the beams from which prisoners were hanged. They died gazing at the incinerator where their bodies would be burned.
And here's a photo of the "shower room," which we all know by now is the gas chamber. No mass killings actually ever occurred in the gas chamber...but there were executions performed here. Also shown: a photo of a photo of a pile of dead bodies.
Finally, this is the firing wall. Located right next to the wild game area. The perfect disguise, I suppose. And below the wall is the blood ditch.
Speaking of disguises, I was intrigued to learn that foreign journalists and diplomats actually did visit Dachau during the war. For these trips, the administrators of the camp would put up a front showing that the camp was more like a fun, recreational place. There was a soccer field and a swimming pool. The visitors were fooled into believing that the prisoners lived in comfort. In fact, the Germans were fooled into believing that the prisoners had a better life in the camp than they did.
Somber and depressing, sure, but it's history. Wasn't it Churchill who said that those who fail to learn from it are doomed to repeat it?
And repeat it have we.
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