I got up bright and early to head to Dachau Concentration Camp on a tour. Dachau was opened March 22, 1933 on the grounds of an old munitions facility. It was one of the first concentration camps and quickly became a training ground for Nazi and SS soldiers on basic torture techniques. This particular camp mostly housed Jews, political prisoners, communists, and homosexuals. Although this camp was not the site of mass extermination like Auschwitz was, it was still responsible for over 40,000 deaths due to beating, malnutrition, disease, and crematoriums. This camp had 6 ovens that were in full operation as well as a gas chamber ("shower house") but the gas chamber was never actually put into operation.
I thought this experience would be very hard for me but for some reason it was not quite what I thought it would be. I think the reason for this is that a lot of it had to be reconstructed, such as the bunks, because the buildings were used for other military activity after the Holocaust. With that said, the experience was not quite the same as it would be visiting one of the death camps. I definitely want to make it a priority to visit Auschwitz sometime in the near future because it is such a strong part of Jewish history and the message that needs to be based on from generation to generation.
I have to admit though, when I saw the crematorium, I started to cry. That was definitely difficult to see. How can someone knowingly put people into there alive or sick and let them die such a horrible death? When the US military got to this camp, there were piles of bodies everywhere and train cars full of dead Jews. They had pictures from that time that were taken for Nazi propaganda and they were on display. It was truly horrifying.
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