The Dachau Concetration Camp: Memorials

Reflection was needed during and after our visit to make sense of what we had seen and learned.  As it stands today, the camp is preserved as a lasting reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust and as a memorial to those who lost their lives there.  It exists as a cautionary tale of what could happen if power is left unchecked.  It reminds us of the destructive effects of fear and hatred.  It reminds us to study history to protect our future.  

There are several memorials and places for reflection in the roll call area.  This sculpture, as mentioned in the video from a couple days ago, was created by a Yugoslavian survivor of Dachau.  It depicts prisoners jumping or falling into barbed wire.  Some prisoners resorted to this to escape the terrors of the camp.  This memorial was dedicated in the 1960s.  

 
In the Jewish faith, it's customary for visitors to leave small stones on graves. I read a little bit more about this custom here and here.  This gesture meant a lot to me.

"Think about how we died here."  

Memorials surround the crematorium. The ashes from the crematorium were buried in piles behind the building and in the nearby wooded area.  Memorials mark the ash pits and the execution range.

"Over six million Jews fell victim to the National Socialist (Nazi) reign of violence." 

The Jewish memorial, set behind the prisoners' barracks, is a place for quiet reflection. 
There are also Catholic and Protestant memorials, and a convent with a chapel is also located on site. 

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With everything going on in the world, take a moment and reflect too.  

The Dachau Concentration Camp: The Crematorium

A bridge separates the crematorium area from the rest of the camp.

Although thousands of prisoners died at Dachau (~32,000 were documented), Dachau was not primarily a death camp.  More prisoners died from malnutrition, over-working, and disease than in the gas chamber.  But when walking through the gas chamber and the crematorium area on the same path that unsuspecting prisoners walked, this fact doesn't seem to matter.

 
(*Disclaimer: The video is shaky because I didn't want to show the faces of other visitors.)

We talk about the Holocaust as the systematic killing of people who were deemed a threat by Nazi party officials.  Taking the walk from room to room made this point perfectly clear.  Each room had a purpose.  Each aspect of the building was intentional.  What I experienced was a factory of death, and it's something that I'll always remember.    

1. The waiting room
2. The undressing room
3. The gas chamber
4. The room to stack bodies before cremation 

The wooden beams used for hangings are visible here.  These ovens worked day and night, and as the war progressed, the ovens' capacity could not keep pace with the number of victims.  Corpses were stacked in and outside of the crematorium.  Dead bodies filled boxcars leading into Dachau.  After American troops liberated the camp in April of 1945, they forced German citizens to view the dead.

Sources

If you're interested in seeing photos and videos of the camp during the war and its liberation, you can look here:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Dachau Memorial Site
Third Reich in Ruins (Dachau then and now)

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My final post will cover the memorials at Dachau.  

This Sunday

 
This trip in two days does not feel real to me yet, but I know that it is a trip I need to take.