The Swingset Goes International, Part Three: Depression at Dachau

I'm definitely a history lover and WWII was always one of the most riveting periods of the past to me. So, of course, when planning our trip to Germany I knew I would be visiting one (or multiple) concentration camps. Dachau (Germans pronounce it "duh-cow", not like Americans who say "dahhk-ow), was the closest concentration camp to Munich, and we spent about half a day here.

Visiting a concentration camp and learning what actually happened there, how many people were actually inside vs. the number of people the camp was actually built for is a whole a different experience.

Dachau was originally opened to hold political prisoners but as the years went on it also held ordinary criminals. They were separated in the camps by red or green tags - red was those opposed to Nazi rule, green was actual criminals. The camp was built to hold approx. 6,000 people but at the end of WWII when the camp was liberated it had 33,000!!!

The prisoners were brought to the camp by trains and marched through iron gates that read, "Arbeit Macht Frei" or Work Will Set You Free. This is where the life was literally sucked from them...

 

This is one of the barracks from the camp. Each barrack had one room of toilets, I believe only 6 total, with no seats, walls or privacy. They also had a small "common area" and rooms of beds.

Each "bed" was supposed to hold one person; however, towards the end of the war they were bunking 3 - 4 people in each space. Imagine that... three bunks at 3 - 4 people each space. Unbelievable.

 

The perimeter had multiple "fences." You had the outside fence, a barbed wire fence and a trench. Any prisoner who made it as far as the trench was shot instantly. Many prisoners ran into the trench on purpose. They no longer wanted to live in misery.

The original foundations (below) of each barracks are still there in Dachau. As you walk through them, you can just imagine the despair from the thousands of people there. Imagine if it rained... the mud, the cold, it's just horrible.

Like all concentration camps, Dachau had working crematoriums and they used them daily. They also had gas chambers but the SS in this camp never actually used them. I don't even want to imagine these being used. It's horrific.

Lastly, this is a memorial statue made to help us remember what happened in the camp. To walk there, to know what happened and people died NO MATTER WHERE I STOOD is powerful. Everyone should experience this type of history and never forget, never let it happen again.