Dachau Concentration Camp

While on vacation with the Austins, we went to Dachau. The iron gates at the entrance of Dachau read "Work Will Set You Free," but nothing was further from the truth for those that entered here when the place was operational. 

The audio tour includes survivors' monologues--told in their own voice and native language--of experiences they endured at Dachau. The pain and reflection in their voices paralyzed me. The visual contradiction of Nathan innocently playing, unaware of the gravity that Dachau holds was both haunting and beautiful. My senses were overwhelmed. I sobbed as I stood in the roll-call square, volleying between remorse that I could actually attempt to comprehend the savagery of this place and appreciation that this place exists for the purpose of forcing a person to comprehend the savagery.  Kyle held me and Nathan asked why I was crying. "Very sad things happened here, buddy, and that makes Mommy sad to think about it."  Nate asked, "Why?" 

Why, indeed. 

This Memorial displays, "Never Again" in Yiddish (written in Hebrew) French, English, German and Russian.
Just in front of it are the ashes of the unknown prisoner.
Powerful.

The view from the museum looking toward the barracks (on the left and right behind the trees). In the distance are the three religious Memorials (Catholic, Protestant and Jewish among others). Did you know that foreign (especially Russian and Polish) clergy were a target of the Third Reich? Many were "housed" here.

Sculpture by Nandor Glid
"...fence posts, ditches and barbed wire are reminiscent of the security facilities installed around the camp. The human skeleton commemorates those, who in an act of desperation, jumped into the barbed wire fence. Death in the concentration camp was commonplace and ubiquitous. This depiction is not only symbolic, it also tells the story of the many suicides that were committed in this way in the Dachau concentration camp. As the visitor enters further into the incline, the motif of humans caught in barbed wire intensifies, like an altarpiece, a triptych. The sculpture is framed by cement posts that reflect the security installation of the former concentration camp"

Barracks

I kept thinking, "What these trees must have seen..."

These gravel beds were once rows and rows of Barracks.
"...The current appearance of the area fails to convey the sense of confinement and density of the original barracks complex. The concentration camp was initially planned to hold 6000 prisoners, but was continually overcrowded in later years. In particular from 1944 onwards the situation confronting the prisoners was an utter disaster: the interiors of the barracks were altered to jam in as many persons as possible. Living conditions worsened drastically, with disease and hunger rife. On April 29, 1945, the day the camp was liberated by American troops, over 30,000 completely enfeebled persons were imprisoned here."

One of two death rooms where they stored the corpses.
 Evy got hungry in the crematorium. I came in here and began to feed her. I felt defiant and powerful that I was sustaining life in the very place that was designated to end life. 

Crematorium exterior

"The unkown prisoner" by Fritz Koelle.

The inscription, roughly translated, "To honor the dead, to warn the living."

Nathan on Camp Road

This map shows the "socialist camp system," and we were at only ONE. Sick and highly organized.

I like to call this "spite breastfeeding."
This is the Jourhouse where they stripped the prisoners of everything, including their clothes, in an effort to humiliate and embarrass them while taking away their individuality and turning them into a number.

The experience was terrible and emotionally exhausting and I highly recommend it to anyone. It is really something to experience awe, nausea, disbelief, sorrow, hope, anger, confusion and determination in a single draw of breath.

sbc