Dachau

"On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a school of violence for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve years of its existence over 200,000 persons from all over Europe were imprisoned here and in the numerous subsidiary camps. More than 43,000 of them died. On April 29,1945, American troops liberated the survivors."


The train dropped the prisoners off here.



They were led into this gate, the only entrance to the prison camp.



"Work sets you free" was set in the middle of the gate. Ironic, huh?







The crematorium area.





"Every barrack was designed to accommodate 200 prisoners, towards the end of the war each barrack was catastrophically overcrowded with up to 2,000 prisoners."





There were 17 barracks on both sides of the camp road. The prisoners planted these poplars between the barracks. It was the main meeting place for the prisoners during the few free hours they had.



I had a wide range of emotions and thoughts as I walked through Dachau. The quiet sadness that still lingers there is not a good feeling. I can't even begin to fathom the terror, torment, torture and the utter devastation that these prisoners had to endure. There is so much more you could say and more opinions that one could throw out there, but I will end here.