Teenage school children are wandering around the open grounds with their teachers. We are surprised to see them. Our initial feelings are that this is not a place for young adults.
After a few days exploring the beautiful Bavarian capital, Munich, we are almost ready to travel further north. A day trip is planned combined with collecting our car.
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site is a mere 25 kilometres from Munich and easily accessible by train or car and after visiting some of the more popular sights in Munich over the last few days, there is no excuse not to make the trip.
A feeling of trepidation and unease describes our mood on the short journey there. This is our first visit to a former Nazi concentration camp. We have no idea what to expect or how we will react.
Entrance to Dachau is free and there is the opportunity to take one of the two daily tours in English or hire an audio guide at a small cost. We opt to self-guide.
The entrance to the camp is a short walk from the Visitor Centre. Over the metal gate is an inscription “Arbeit Macht Frei” which translates to “Work makes you free”. We walk through the same gate through which thousands of prisoners entered.
The Dachau Concentration Camp holds a special significance in history. This was the Nazi regime’s first concentration camp and the prototype for subsequent camps. Established in March 1933 a few weeks after Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany, the camp was initially built to house political activists but evolved into a death camp holding Jews, artists and intellectuals, physically and mentally handicapped, and homosexuals, who Hitler thought were unfit for his new Germany.
The one remaining dormitory left on the site. All remaining dormitories were razed to commemorate those who suffered and died at the behest of the Nazi regime
Designed to house 6,000 people, the camp was used to house over 65,000 at the time of liberation at the end of April 1945. The camp was the longest-running of all the concentration camps with over 200,000 people imprisoned in the concentration camp and its subcamps over its 12-year existence.
While the gas chamber was never used, the crematorium was well used; malnutrition, disease, overwork and execution claimed one out of five prisoners, and some prisoners were subjected to brutal medical experiments.
Crematorium at Dachau concentration camp
Today, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site is a place of remembrance. Visitors can freely walk around the walled grounds, visit the remaining dormitory and the museum which provides a historical chronology of events. There are several commemorative sites dedicated to different religions dotted around the grounds. We visit each and the museum which provides a detailed and graphic chronology of events within the camp walls.
The museum provides a graphic history of events
Tree-lined avenue to one of the Remembrance sites
The memorial site is a place of education. For those interested to learn more, the Education Department of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site offers seminars and special guided tours dedicated to more isolated topics and offers guided tours for school classes.
Departing through the gate that many never had a chance to do, we agree this has been a sombre and sobering experience.
Should the schoolchildren have been visiting? On reflection we agree, to prevent a reoccurrence of this nature, this is the best place for a reminder and a history lesson on the atrocities of war.
