I don't usually go with tour groups because I like to have the freedom to wander around and spend as much time in a place as I'd like, but I thought that without a tour guide I might not be able to appreciate the significance of what happened at Dachau. So I went with a certified tour guide recommended by the hostel. Our group took a train to the town of Dachau, then a bus to the camp. Our guide told us that Dachau used to be a very historical and royal town, and that the camp there was respected because of its location in such a nice place. Of course, average citizens had no idea what was going on inside the camp, and nor did foreign leaders, because the SS made the camp appear efficient, sanitary, and civil. Here's a photo of the gates through which the inmates entered. The words on the gate mean "Work will set you free." That was the theme at the camp; inmates were told that if they were obedient and hard-working, they would be rewarded with freedom.
This camp was used only for men. When they arrived, they forfeited all of their government papers (the equivalent of passports, birth certificates, social security cards today) and thus their identity. Instead of a name, they were given a number. Their clothes were taken and they were showered in the room below. This room was also used for torturing inmates, convenient because the SS could easily clean the blood from the room with the built-in showers and drains.
The inmates were given striped clothing, their heads were shaved, and their numbers were indicated on patches on their clothes. This way, our tour guide said, the men all looked the same when lined up together- no one was an individual anymore.
We saw the barracks where the inmates slept- early on, they were nicer and had mattresses and clear boundaries between bunks.
As time went on, the camp became severely overcrowded. The bunks reflected this, and started to look like nothing more than bare wooden planks with no mattresses, and no personal space for the inmates. A room that was built for 200 men eventually housed over 2000.
Most of the barracks were destroyed after WWII. Years after the inmates were liberated, they decided to make the camp a memorial to the thousands who had died there. So in the place of the barracks, the survivors rebuilt the foundations and placed sort of a headstone at the head of each one, indicating the number of the barrack that used to be there. For family members of men who died there, the barracks serve as the only gravesite they have. Inmates who died at Dachau were buried there initially, but as time went on the camp became overburdened by more and more inmates coming in. The SS didn't have enough time or space for all of the bodies, so they began using a crematorium for the "waste." Initially, there were only two ovens. But eventually those ovens, too, became overburdened, and were replaced with four industrial ovens.
We were able to go up to the crematorium and actually see the ovens, but I couldn't bring myself to photograph them. The same was true for the gas chamber... Walking into that room, I felt suffocated and claustrophobic- I couldn't wait to leave. I didn't stick around long enough to take photos there, either. The story of how these gas chambers were used is what really haunted me. It wasn't actually common to execute inmates from Dachau in the gas chambers there. Instead, the SS would tell inmates at other camps that they were being transferred, and inmates didn't suspect anything unusual since they were often transferred between camps. But when the group arrived at Dachau, they were delivered to the gas chamber instead of the showers. Still, the inmates suspected nothing, because the gas chambers were built to look like showering rooms.
I was really surprised at the ways in which the SS tried to avoid confrontation and conflict. Inmates knew that if they stepped out of line, forgot to make their bed, or made some type of mistake, that their entire barrack would be punished. They didn't know when the punishment would come, sometimes it was immediate, sometimes not for days or weeks. So inmates lived in constant fear, making them extremely obedient and cooperative. The crematorium and gas chamber were outside the walls of the main camp, and out of sight of the inmates, because if the inmates knew of their hopeless situation, they'd have no motivation to work... And ironically, it was the free labor of the inmates that allowed Germany to finance the war.
It goes without saying that Dachau is not a happy place, but our tour guide made an interesting point: we had beautiful weather, a nice breeze, green trees, and a blue sky... Areas of the camp actually looked pretty. Still, horrible things happened there on even the sunniest of days. Today, he said, Dachau is still important as a memorial for what happened there, as a form of education about Germany's history, and as a place of discussion and debate. One of my favorite sights was the statue of the "Unknown Soldier," which says that the site serves as a memorial to the dead and a warning to the living.
When we got back from Dachau, I hung out at my hostel for awhile and then got ready for dinner. The guys I'd met at Hofbrauhaus recommended Weisses Brauhaus, and wrote down what I should order, so I headed there.
First, I had a nice pretzel and beer...
Then Schweinsbraten! It's pork shoulder, served with delicious gravy and bread dumplings.
So with that, I was done for the day!
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This was a very interesting post, Jackie. I hope you are enjoying your trip and are learning a lot. Cheers!
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