The Dachau Memorial Site

I owe it to Europe to give it at least one very serious post. This will be that.



This past Sunday we had the oppertunity to visit Dachau, the only concentration camp to survive the entire Third Reich reign.

It opened as a concentration camp on March 3, 1933. They chose the location because it had originally been used as a munitions factory, so it had the necessary security towers, gates, and sleeping facilities to house prisoners.

Mind you I use the term "House" loosely, because by the end of the twelve year Nazi regime, they had stuffed nearly 2,500 prisoners at the same time, into baracks that were zoned for 250.

Besides the intentional overlook of a building's leagal capacity, there were other "alterations," and additions made to the camp, Such as the electric barbed wire on top of the perimeter walls. There was also the Death strip- a gravel road on the outer side of the fences, where prisoners who were lucky enough to make it over the barbed wire, were usually shot. It also wasn't unusual for guards to put prisoners into lose/lose situations by throwing objects, such as hats, onto the death strip and telling them to retrieve it. Guards got pay-bumps and bonuses for catching,and killing potential escapees.

The fences themselves have also been resurrected as part of the entire Dachau memorial. They had been torn down after the liberation on April 4, 1945. This, for me at least, raised a question about one of the smaller memorials in the Dachau site, sculpted by an outside artist, made specifically in memory of the prisoners who died in the entanglement of barbed wire. The "abstract" human figures, made to be hanging limp and rigid on the equally as "abstract" barbed wire, seemed uninspired and innapropriate. Had rebuilding the fences and walls not been enough?
I hated it.
However, I had no say in the memorial picking process, so I'm letting it go.

Dachau was not an extermination camp. It was mostly political prisoners,diplomats, and members of parliment who had not voted in favor of the Nazi party. That being said, make no mistake, they had no special treatment. Prisoners were beaten, and verbally abused upon arrival. They were stripped of all personal belongings, their heads were shaved, and they were told, among other things, how to wear their uniforms and make their beds. Punishment for breaking ANY rules included standing in a 2'x2' cell for days, with no way to sit or sleep, and no food. They could also be condemned to solitary confinement in a cell void of any natural light.
Beatings and other forms of torture became common place. They had no names, they had no hope, and you didn't get freed.

I hadn't meant for Dachau to be a life changing experience, and I don't know that it was. All I can say is that the pictures in history books, and the countless documentaries don't hold a candle to visiting this site. I'm also not comparing my tourist experience to the actual experience by ANY means. I simply want to share the relavence and importance of visiting one of these sites.

The last memorial we saw was raised in honor of the unknown prisoner, the statue itself is of a liberated man, dressed in his own clothes, head held high, and hands in his pockets, which was against the rules despite the pockets in their uniforms. The words below the statue say in German, Honor the dead. Warn the living. Which I think is an appropriate way to end this post.