The words translate to something like: ‘Work will set you free’… probably the most cynical use of language in history… and it was on the gates on most of the Nazi concentration camps, as far as I know. It was supposed to lull the people being herded through these gates into a false sense of security…
Dachau is unusual. It was the longest-running camp… first open and almost the last closed. Technically, even though it had the ‘showers’ all set up to pump poison gas, they were never used. The prisoners here died of starvation, disease and torture.
The place is huge. Every one of those long rectangles of stone once held a barracks block into which were crammed thousands of people… Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and people who disagreed with the system.
I can’t explain the place to you.
I was here once before, with my older daughter.
It wasn’t any easier the second time.
This time we took the escorted tour… and I learned even more things that I wish I hadn’t.
For some reason, seeing groups of German teenage school kids walking around and ignoring their teachers who were trying to explain the history of this place… laughing and joking… sort of pissed me off. If anybody needs to learn the lesson of this place, it is the German people… I mean, we all do… but them most of all.
We drove to Dachau from Munich, and it isn’t a very far drive.
The camp is now nestled inside the surrounding community which moves ever closer to the walls.
I did wonder what it would be like these days to be in your backyard and see the guard towers through the trees. I also wondered what it would have been like to be in this cell, looking out past where the barbed wire used to be strung and seeing the machinegun nest.
Only a few of the original buildings still stand… and a few have been rebuilt.
I do applaud the German people for maintaining this place to keep the history alive, no matter how horrible that history is.
The old SS command buildings and the rooms where they used to torture prisoners have been converted into a museum that houses many interesting artifacts and a great deal of historical information… but one thing I saw will stay with me forever…
It was this huge map, showing all the concentration camps… and the extermination camps… and the medical experimentation camps… and the work camps where they worked people to death making things for the Nazi war machine. These camps extended all through the vast Nazi-held territories. Some were so big that they had satellite camps clustered around them to take in the overflow. This truly was murder on an industrial scale.
One last thing: Screw you, holocaust deniers!
Pouring My Art Out 
Holocaust deniers, like Nazis, have no penises. This is proven true.
But on serious note… I’m going to go here one day. One day. And it’s going to destroy me, I know it. I don’t know how you stood that visit… too painful even to think about. Which is why we have to think about it.
the irony of life… and death
…and penises.
uh… yes?
Nuff said?
Is it ever?
Not really, no.
precisely
Makes me sick. I’m mostly German. If people don’t believe there’s a devil after this, I’d be afraid of what it would take. Very very sad. I agree though it’s very important to keep these things alive. I hope one day those teens will get it.
me too
Hearing that about the German school kids really pisses me off. I heard a story that after Eisenhower visited Dachau, he had all the locals bused in so they could see the camp. He wanted to rub their noses in it. All things considered, it’s a kind gesture considering what those people ignored going on there for so long.
They knew
This was murder by the state in a very organized, systematic matter, and not the kind of chaotic genocide the world ordinarily sees. Maybe that’s why the holocaust is so fascinating. It shows us how efficiently cruel any society can be, when people put their minds to it.
It is mind boggling
A sobering post, Art. We didn’t get to Dachau when we were in Munich — my son was only 8 and I didn’t think it was appropriate. I think it is important — especially in today’s world where there is so much inter-racial strife, to remember.
Me too.
Thank you for sharing this. The horrors of the concentration camps must never be forgotten.
Exactly
Thank you for sharing your visit! The same sore of people who deny the holocaust will deny climate change. Having such a closed mind is just not healthy
I wish we could force closed minds open, but it isn’t easy…
Thank You Art. Well said and done.
There is one more… then we can move on.
Or as my friend Dora once told me of the tattoo on her wrist – What we forget we are doomed to repeat.
Ha… my tattoo is a story to keep me from forgetting some stuff too…
Indeed – Dora was a Russian Jew who spent time in the Death Camps. I told her she could get the number tattoo removed and she said she never wanted anyone to forget, so she would keep the tattoo.
That is heart-wrenching.