"Arbeit macht frei" (Work makes you free) would have been the last thing that the prisoners in the Dachau Concentration Camp read before their term of imprisonment started, or their slow, painful, and lonely walk along the road to death began.
If I remember correctly, the Dachau Work Camp was opened in 1933 on the grounds of an old Munitions Factory, and operated until around April 29th 1945 when it was liberated by the US Forces. It is important to note that Dachau was a Work Camp and not an Extermination Camp - as reinforced by the writing on the main building's roof during it's operating period
"Es gibt einen Weg zur Freiheit. Seine Meilensteine heißen: Gehorsam, Fleiß, Ehrlichkeit, Ordnung, Sauberkeit, Nüchternheit, Wahrhaftigkeit, Opfersinn und Liebe zum Vaterland!" or
"There is one way to freedom. It's milestones are called Obedience, Dilligence, Honesty, Tidiness, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sense of Self Sacrifice, and Love of the Fatherland" - although the end result was often the same...death.
During this time, some 200,000 prisoners passed through the camp, with around 30,000 of them dying, and around 67,000 of them in the camp at the time of liberation (of which around 2,000 died shortly after liberation due to illness etc.). At it's "high point", the 64,000 prisoners were imprisoned here at here in the main camp at the one time (only half of the 67,000 at the time of liberation were in the main camp - the others were in subsidiary camps in the area), occupying one of 30 huts which were built to accomodate 200 men each, but accomodating more than 2,000 per hut. After the liberation all of the huts were torn down, and today only the foundations of the huts remain. In 1965 two of them were rebuilt to give people an idea of what they were like. I think I am glad that they are all gone, as the rows and rows of hut foundations kind of remind you of the thousands of people who died here - all that remains is a hint of a memory.
The beds in 1933. Notice the dividers between the beds, the board at the head end for storing personal items. 200 men slept in one room at this point in time. | 
The beds in the latter phases. Notice that there are now no dividers, no head boards for storing personal items (confiscated, including photos).. |
I listened to one recording of a prisoner recalling their time in the camp, especially related to the bed making. He said that the straw stuffed mattresses, which had rounded corners and were lumpy, had to be pushed into a perfect rectangle shape in the mornings. The bed covers then had to be folded to exaclty 60 wide, and laid along the bed from top to bottom. The folds in the blanket had to run perfectly parallel with the blue and white stripes in the blankets. At the head of the bed, the blanket would cascade down from the pillow onto the bed. Across all the bunks, this cascade height had to be exactly the same. And all of this in the morning rush to get out to parade. If the beds weren't perfect, then the 4 men that shared the bed received punishment...which could range in severity from beatings, less food, harder work, or even "The Post". "The Post" was an extremely cruel form of punishment where the prisoner's hands were bound behind their back, and then they were strung up by their wrists from a pole for 1 hour. Naturally, their shoulders would dislocate, and therefore they would not be able to work properly the next day....downwards spiral.
For these people who were then sick, or unable to work due to injury, there was a special sick parade. During this sick parade, the prisoners were ridiculed for not being able to work, as well as being further beaten. Some of them were also used to perform certain medical experiments on etc.
I should probably point out here, before people start to think that this inhumane treatment only happened to the Jewish people, that Dachau started out as a camp where Hitler sent his political opponents, and enemies of the state. The list of people that were to be imprisoned kept expanding and expanding, to include the following catagories:
- Political prisoners (Communists, Social Democrats, annarchists)
- Professional German criminals
- A-Social people (homeless, unemployed, prostitutes, etc..., and Gypsies)
- Homosexuals
- Jehovas' Witnesses
You can find more info about the classifications
here.
On the parade ground of the camp, there is now a large memorial to the people the served and died at Dachau. One of the interesting parts of this memorial (which I neglected to photograph) is 3 large chain sections joined together, with replicas of the badges that the prisoners wore. What makes it interesting is that 3 groups are missing from this memorial, and namely the Homosexuals, the Professional Criminals, and the A-Socials. This is because at the time of the commissioning of the memorial, these groups weren't recognised as being real prisoners by some Prisoners Group because they were not imprissoned for their political beliefs. Also the Professional Criminals were not included because this memorial was dedicated to the prisoners' solidarity, and criminals were seen as having none.
Also attached to the camp, but seperated from the main complex with a fence, was the Crematorium. The Crematorium originally started out as a small building with 2 ovens, but this soon became too few...even with it burning day and night. Therefore a second and larger Crematorium building with 4 extra ovens was built. These ovens each had room for 2-3 bodies at a time, but at the time of liberation the American Soldiers found a room containing over 3000 bodies waiting to be cremated.
Above the new ovens, and just a little to the front (which you can't see) there is a beam that crosses the roof. This beam was actually used to hang prisoners in front of the ovens when they had been sentenced to death for one reason or another. The bodies would then be cut down and thrown straight into the ovens.
This building also housed 4 rooms/chambers that were used for "disinfecting" the clothes of the dead, before returning them to the camp, and two rooms for storing bodies waiting to be cremated.
There was also a Gas Chamber, disguised to look like showers, but it is claimed that this chamber was never actually used. Even so, it is a somewhat eerie and claustraphobic feeling walking into this room...even though you know that you have a chance to leave it again.
The original 2 ovens in the Crematorium
| 
Three of the further 4 ovens added in the new "Barracks X" Crematorium building |
The whole camp complex was, and still is, surrounded by high fences of concrete and barbed wire, and trenches.
The fences and trenches were watched over by guards in the guard towers. The trenches were just before the fences, and were designed to stop anyone reaching the fence. Basically anyone who made it into these trenches, or onto the fence was then shot. This was the process that a lot of the prisoners used to take their own lives, and why the main memorial sculpture at the sight takes the form it does. The sculpture is designed to show the mangled bodies of prisoners who have thrown themselves onto the fences, as well as to appear as though it itself is the barbed wire fence, and to portray the desperation that drove them to suicide (above).
We also visited "The Bunker" that lies behind the main building. This was the building that housed the "Speical Prisoner" who were treated better than the others. The Bunker also housed the prisoners who were on solitary confinement punishment. During the war, some of the cells in The Bunker were converted into standing cells. That is, they were roughly 60x60cm, which didn't give you enough room to sit or lie down.
After reading that so far, is it any wonder that Dachau was a model camp, upon which most of the other camps were based? There was even an SS Training School at Dachau, where soldiers learned to be camp guards, and had to prove what they had learned on the prisoners in Dachau before taking up their posts in other camps.
When the American's liberated Dachau, they did something that I found very interesting. Firstly they made the residents of the town of Dachau and the politicians come and visit Dachau, in particular the Crematorium. They did this to make everyone realise what actually was going on here, as the propoganda was telling everyone that Dachau operated like a normal prison, with normal prison conditions.
The second, and more interesting part, was that they made the SS Soldiers who had been running the camp help bring out the 3000 bodies in the storage room for burial or cremation.
Anyway, suffice to say that this was an interesting experience. We had asked ourselves a few times if we really wanted to visit Dachau or not, but at the end of the day I am glad that I did.
View across the hut foundations to the guard tower | 
View across the hut foundations back towards the main building |
Plaque dedicated to those who died | 
If only it was that easy... |
"These are the enemies of democracy!" | 
No! You can't make me! |
Think about how we died here... | 
A view that most only ever saw on the way in... |
Tschüß,
'Brush
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