Dachau Concentration Camp

We detoured off the romantic road and headed towards Munich. We parked at a supermarket in the suburb of Munich, Dachau, where the concentration camp is. We walked to the information/bookstore and then into the camp. We passed the old railway tracks and station where they unloaded the Jews, Homosexuals, Political Prisoners and Soviet Prisoners of War. We walked through the gates under the ‘Jourhaus’ with the words ‘Arbeit macht frei’-Work for your freedom. We walked over the stones on roll call area it was a clod day and we didn’t have warm clothes. We then went in the big Maintenance building which used to be prisoner registration, the common wash room, the kitchen and partly a factory. Now it is the Museum not recommended for under the age of twelve. We spent most of our the day in the Museum and almost read everything in there from the third reich and Hitler to life in the concentration camp to when it was freed. We watched a short movie with disturbing images of dead bodies and life in the camp. Outside we walked down the ‘CampRoad’ lined with poplar trees and all the foundations of the barracks. Built to house 6,000 but ended up full with over 30,000 before the camp was liberated by the Americans in 1945. Two of the barracks were reconstructed in 1965 and we went inside and saw all the wooden bunks and lockers. The grounds are still surrounded by barbed wire fences and seven watch towers. At the opposite end of the Museum was a concrete chapel and it had no right angles in the design. There were a few other religious memorial as well as a Jewish one. The was also a sculptured memorial in front of the museum. Outside of the walls we visited the Crematorium and Gas camber. There were special rooms to store bodies before being burnt in the ovens. The gas chamber wasn’t used for mass extermination but it was still creepy walking inside it. We walked around a garden where there were mass graves and two execution ranges. We didn’t have enough time to go into the ‘Bunker’ where they kept the special prisoners, tortured people and did medical experiments. We left very shaken and sobered and had a really interesting time at Dachau.