Dachau
On Saturday Marissa and I rose early to go to Dachau, the first concentration camp and the only camp to be open for all twelve years. It is one experience that I will remember for a lifetime. It was odd being at a concentration camp, first because it was a beautiful day, I always imagined it being cloudy and snowing. As we walked by the orginal gate the haunting words, "Work Will Set You Free" were placed above the door. The orginal train tracks still lay outside of the gates as well.
The first thing we did was watch a short film about the liberation of Dachau, filmed by the American Liberators. It was a work camp built for 6,000, however, 32,000 where liberated and 34,000 died there. The 34,000 is only part of the truth, many prisioners were set to other camps to died. The film was incredibly hard to watch- especially when they showed the towns people of Dachau seeing inside the camp for the 1st time the look of shock and fear in their face, you could see that they understood that Dachau would never be looked at the same again. The whole movie as hard as it was to watch it was a million times harder to grasp.
As we left the main building (orginal) we stood in the a flat stone covered place, the place where prisioners stood every morning and every evening for atleast an hour until their number was called. The one thought that cylced in my mind was how much fear the noise my feet where making on the stone used to strike into the hearts of the prisioners who didn't know whether today or tomorrow or when they would die.
On our two and half hour tour we learned that the average wieght of a man was 80lbs. They were able to fit 400 in a bunk made for 40. We walked down the path where the barracks used to be- but the only thing that remains in the outline and the number of the barrack. There is a Jewish, catholic and Protestant memorials for those who died in Dachau.
On the tour the most chilling part was the gas chambers- however they were only used for experiements not for mass killings. We also saw the orginal 4 ovens, I couldnt bear to take pictures of the ovens, it is something that will be forever ingained into my memory.
The Gas chamber was a cold place only to contrast with the warth of the sun on the outside.
Later that day after taking an long break we went to the Haufbrou house.
On Sunday we walked around and saw the Glockenspeil go off!
