Today is our last full day in Munich. One of the main reasons for coming here was to go to the Dachau Concentration Camp. Dachau (pronounced dock-ow) was the first concentration camp opened by the Nazis and the only one to remain in operation throughout all 12 years of the Third Reich. It was located on the edge of the town of Dachau about 12 miles from Munich.
Dachau was opened only three months after Hitler became Chancellor of Germany by Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Nearly 100 sub-camps were set up all over Southern Germany and Austria. The first people to be sent there were political prisoners from other prisons, but the camp was expanded by forced labor of the prisoners to eventually house any arrested by the Reich including targeted groups of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, repeat criminals, physically and mentally handicapped, priests and pastors who opposed Nazism and the actions of the government, and Jews.
Dachau was run by the Waffen Schutzstaffel or SS and became the model for all other camps and the SS training school. Prisoners were treated brutally from the beginning, and died from malnutrition, overwork, disease, breaking camp rules, medical experimentations, or were just murdered.
Crematoriums were set up to dispose of bodies due to so many deaths, but prisoners were shipped by the thousands to extermination camps such as Auswitch in Poland.
Dachau was liberated on April 29, 1945 by U.S. soldiers. There were more than 30,000 prisoners still there.
After the war, the camp was used to hold SS soldiers who were waiting to be tried, then 2000 ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia when hundreds of thousands were forced out of countries in Eastern Europe and were waiting to be resettled, and later by the U.S. Army. It was closed in 1960.
During the reign of Hitler, more than 3.5 million Germans were imprisoned for political reasons and more than 77,000 were killed. It was obviously dangerous to oppose what was going on.
In the mid 1960’s former prisoners banded together to memorialize what happened at Dachau. The Dachau Memorial site was opened to the public in 1965. It contains some of the original buildings, the through which prisoners had to enter, guardtowers, two of the 32 prisoner barracks that were rebuilt, some of the original crematoriums, and several religious memorials.
There are libraries – and the internet – full of accounts of ehat occurred and how people, human beings, were treated. I will not recount that here as you can read as much as you want – or can stomach, but I’ll share some of the pictures below.
WORK SETS YOU FREE
Replicas of early barracks when each person had a space with a straw mattress.
Later barracks when it was so overcrowded men slept head to toe and side by side.
Washing and toilet facilities.
Guard tower and fencing with a street right beside it.
Wheelbarrows used for moving rocks – or people.
Picture of the old barracks and the electric fence.
Crematorium
“Shower” Room prepared for gassing and room where bodies were collected for the crematorium.
Religious memorials
Several of numerous memorials
Commemoration of Liberation
These are just snapshots. We spent nearly three hours there. A split second of the time spent by hundreds of thousands who suffered unimaginably. The world cannot forget. We must understand and explain to the next generations how these things happen. We must participate in opposing it around the world where persecution is ongoing. People, humans, are in need. We can help. We must.
Addendum:
I was unable to complete writing about our visit to the Dachau Memorial site until the 7th and was trying hard to publish the post before boarding the ship back to the U.S. in Amsterdam. A couple of hours after I tapped “Publish” I learned of the attack on Israel. Only God knows what the outcomes will be, but there is horror ahead on both sides that will likely spill over into worldwide impacts. This time, as compared to the 1930’s and 40’s, Israel is a nation with a sophisticated military and such an attack will not go unavenged. The very least we should do is pray, for all involved, for the peace of Jerusalem, for the return of Jesus, for the mercies of God.