When you think of vacation, you typically don't think "concentration camp". After spending a lackluster day in Munich, Chris and I decided to take a short train ride out to Dachau. I had been there before (back in '94) but thought it would be a good thing to see again now, having some more life experience and perspective. Chris had wanted to go when we originally booked the trip, however, we thought it wasn't going to be possible. Fortunately everything worked out and we were able to book a guided tour of the facility with relative ease.
We met up with our tour group about 12:30pm at the train station and we were actually surprised to see about 15 people signed up for the tour as well. We thought that since it was a Sunday, there wouldn't be that many people interested in heading out to Dachau. After about 30 minutes by train and by bus we were standing at the memorial site.
Our guide, Brandon, did a good job of setting the scene for what Dachau really was back in the 30's and 40's. It was actually built as a work internmant camp for those Germans that openly questioned/opposed the Nazi Party. This camp, however, quickly became something very different and far more sinister. Without going into the full details (you can do your own research online), Dachau was the 1st German concentration camp, and all of the things that happened at some of the more infamous camps (i.e. Auschwitz) were first tested, and tried here.
One can only truly understand how grotesque the living conditions were for these people by touring the grounds. On the day that the Allied forces liberated the camp in 1945, there were over 32,000 prisoners in the camp. When built, Dachau was designed to house only 6,000. That number alone is only an indication of how disturbing the sight must have been when allied forces showed up to liberate the camp. It is estimated that roughly 50,000 people died in the 12 years that Dachau was open. That number, however, is only the verified number of dead, there is really no way of knowing how many people actually entered, and died at the camp between 1933 and 1945. This is also the smallest number of deaths that were verfied as compared to the other concentration camps that took after Dachau...Auschwitz alone estimated that roughly 1.5 million deaths occurred in Auschwitz.
We have attached some pictures, but have many more we will share when we get home, as well as some more of the history and context of the photos. Chris and I both consider this one of the better stops we have made on the trip, but it was also a pretty sobering experience as well.
After visiting Dachau, we returned to Munich at about 6pm and had dinner and a cappacino before boarding our train back to Stuttgart. The train ride back was shorter with fewer stops and we made it back to Clemens' and Judith's around 11:30pm. Tomorrow is laundry and relaxing before continuing the week. Apparently we are going to do dinner picnic style tomorrow night up on a hilltop overlooking Stuttgart. Sounds great to us! Anyway, hope you are all well and we will write more in a couple days.
Love,
Chris and Shane
