Dachau Concentration Camp

Last night I slept pretty terribly. Beds smaller than a full and I just do not get along. I miss my queen at home. :-( But I woke up a lot of times in the night. I finally just gave up. We therefore got up sooner than planned. We left and took the metro u and s lines and got the marstenplatz or something like that where our tour was going to start. We got there early and decided to walk around. There were so many cool building like right together. We walked around and I got a pretzel and a breakfast pastry that looked like of like a cinnamon roll but wasn't cinnamon. I don't really know what it was but it was good. After that Cassandra found a bratwurst and I said to myself, I should probably get one since I am in Germany. So I had one of those too. It was a lot of food but I figured better to not get hungry on the tour!

 

We walked around a bit more before going back in front of the cathedral to a little column with a gold statue on top to meet our tour guide. There were a lot of people there but only because they have different tours meet there and do them in different languages.

Our group ended up being 10 people including us and our guides name was Tom. We then got one a bus to go to a train to go to another bus to get to the camp. On the way there our guide Tom told us some of the history about the camp. This was one of the few camps that was open for all 12 years. It was opened easy on just as a detainment camp which later on was used as a concentration camp. This camp was also next to the SS "School of Terror" where all elite SS came to learn how to be in the SS. We didn't visit that part of the camp but I can only imagine what it would be like considering it was nick named the school of terror.

When we got there the first thing we did was go to the visitor’s center which was outside the actual camp. There we talked inside about some more of the history. They had a cafe there so I got a coke and then felt sort of horrible to be sitting in a cafe with the camp so close by... It just seemed sort of... I don't know really how to describe it, just knowing so many people a couple hundred feet away starved to death 70 years ago. It was just kind of not a good feeling.

After that we started out. We went and talked about the front gate with the famous work will set you free phrase that you can also find at Auschwitz/Birkeneau. It was originally true because this camp was originally a work camp where you would be released if you did good work. But then after the second and third phase it was just a sick joke. The original barracks have been destroyed but there are two which have been rebuilt with consult from survivors. We went through the entrance of how getting into the camp worked. First you are met by the admin of the camp who tells you that only the devil laughs here and that he is the devil. Then random people are beaten and then you are taken into the maintenance building to be shaved, showered, numbered, and given a uniform. The uniform had pants pockets which you weren't allowed to use or else you were shot or beaten.

The maintenance building still stands and the paint has been taken back to what it would have been like. It was pretty horrible. The shower room they would also tie the prisoner’s wrists together and then hang them by their wrists with their whole body weight which was really painful and could cause permanent damage. In this camp you weren't tattooed with your number but rather given it on a piece of cloth. So I guess that was something that they came up with later. There were also some numbers given as to the prisoner count in the camp but we know those numbers now to be a very low guesstimate.

After that we watched a little documentary which was about 3 minutes long with footage of the camp right after liberation. It was pretty sad. Obviously. But it was hard to watch. We also saw a beating table where each SS had to everyday beat a prisoner 25 times. Most of them actually looked forward to this part of their day. But the terrible part was that the prisoner would have to count out each strike in German and if he wavered or slurred it would start back over at one. This wasn't as bad in the beginning days (as bad... Bad word choice as either way it’s horrible) but as the camp went on and they got polish and Czech prisoners who didn't speak German it just got worse. Prisoners would have to learn to count to 25 perfectly or else they would be pretty much beaten to death.

After that we went to the Bunker which was where political prisoners that they couldn't really kill were taken. This was one of the worst places in the camp though because even though you wouldn't be killed, you would be tortured. They had over 70 little rooms where the prisoners lived which each had toilets and a heater furnace. The switch for these heaters was on the outside of the cell. In the winter it would get to be like -20 degrees outside and because the building was made of just concrete the cells would get really cold. So whether you were well behaved or liked would determine whether your heater was turned on or not. They also would turn the on in the middle of summer when it was blistering hot. Pretty horrible. They also had some cells which were called standing cells where they divided the already closet size room into six and then made them shorter so that you had to hunch to stay standing. There wasn't enough room to sit or to stand straight and prisoners would be left in there for up to 72 hours. It sounds horrible. Also they cut most of the rooms in half so that you couldn't stand or sit, and most of the cells were black. Some had windows, which just let more cold in. The guards would run up and down the halls all the time and threaten the prisoners. Pretty scary stuff. There was a little portable alter which could be put in different rooms of the higher up political prisoners here so that was kind of nice. Mostly prisoners here were like Austrian Princes and more known people that the government just couldn't kill. It was pretty terrible.

Then we went outside and saw the two memorial statues that have been put up by the Maintenance building. One is a sort of warped human body sculpture which also looks like barbed wire. The other was a chain that was made with the different triangles and stars the prisoners wore. This sculpture still misses the green triangle, pink triangle for homosexuals, and the black triangle for asexuals or pretty much anyone who didn't fit in society’s box. This would include beggars, hermits, and gypsies. These are missing because in the 60's when it was put in, it was still illegal to be a homosexual so they are still missing. I think it is pretty sad that lessons weren't learned from the holocaust and that those are still not included.

After that we walked across the big space used for roll call which was probably a bit bigger than a football field, to get to the model bunkers. The first room showed what the beds were like in the first phase where each prisoner had a separate bunk with a shelf. The shelf was to be a constant reminder that they had nothing to put on their shelf. They also had mattresses made with straw which every morning had to be made in perfect rectangles with their blankets stretching down the line with perfect stripes that matched up from one bed to the next. This was pretty hard to do so there were special people that were in charge of doing it. If it wasn't perfect everyone would be punished. There were also wooden benches where the prisoners could sit before bed. Next was an example of beds from the second phase where there were no partitions between beds and also no sides on the beds. There were also no benches. Lastly was the room from the third phase on where there were just a top, bottom, and middle bunk with no breaks or anything. I don't think they had straw mattresses on the last two phases. It didn't look like they did anyways. There was also a bathroom where the toilets all faced each other and a really inadequate wash room with two fountains like sinks. It was pretty horrible. There were like 8 toilets for four rooms of prisoners. Each which had like over a two hundred people in them at minimum. It was pretty horrible. There was an example of a call for that bunker which showed that at minimum there was 800 something people and on that sheet the max was 2800 people. We know that number now to be a low number for the camp.

 The prisoners would get 3 rations of soup per day which was really just water with a few vegetables (if you were lucky) in addition to a small pieces of bread which would need to last you all day. There was a debate in the camp whether it was better to save it to last all day or to eat it all at once to feel full.

 After the barracks we went down the line of where the barracks were to get to the shrines. There were over 25 barracks. The outlines of the foundation are still here and now are marked with each barracks number. At the end of the line there are four shrines that have since liberation been put up. There is one for Catholics, Jewish, Protestant, and Russian Orthodox. The protestant one looks all wonky which was their way of saying screw you to the Nazis who made the camp with perfect angles and stuff like that. There are still the authentic guard towers and such though the fences have mostly been redone with the exception of one section which has stayed intact to show the area on the outsides of the camp. So first there was a grass section which if you were seen on you would be promptly shot and considered to be trying to escape. The SS would sometimes take a prisoners hat and throw it on the grass and tell them to go get it. If they did they were shot and if they didn't they were shot for refusing orders. Pretty messed up... But if you got through the grass you had to go down and back up a canal. After which were rocks and barbed wire, after which was the barbed wire fence, then a river stream, and then after that if they survived they found themselves in the SS School of Terror. Needless to say, no one ever escaped after the first phase. Only one person is known to have escaped but then he fought in the war and died so we don't know how he did it.

After that we crossed a bridge which did not exist at the time but has now been added, and went to see the crematoriums and gas chamber. These were definitely used but it is still unknown as to what extent. The first crematorium one had two opening to put in bodies. It is low ball estimated to have been used for 11,000 people. Low. I cannot even imagine. Later a second one was made which also included a gas chamber. It was so emotional to see and walk through. The "shower room" had 30 shower heads of which only one remains. The poison crystals were put in on the sides after the doors were locked. These would take anywhere between 3-30 minutes to take effect as they would react from the heat. It was pretty terrible. The room was very short and not very big. We know that the gas chamber was one of the later ones added as it has outward opening doors. Next to this room were two chambers where they would pile the corpses before burning them. The new crematorium had four oven openings and the smoke would be cycled underground and then out of the chimney. Behind this building which is surprisingly small for the terror it caused, are now memorials for the dead. There were many mass graves for the ashes from the crematoriums. It is impossible to tell they say by the remains of the ash how many people were victims to this but it is presumed to have been a lot.

This camp was one of the final ones to be liberated and is one of the longest standing. The people in the surrounding were well aware of the camps existence but operated under a don't ask, don't tell policy when it came to what actually happened within the camp. The Nazis even went so far in the early days as to publish photos of the prisoners on the cover of a Munich magazine. The public of Munich was well informed about the prisoners as they were not trained directly to the camp but rather to Munich where they were then paraded through the city while the public was encouraged to throw things, beat, insult, and attack the prisoners. They were shown to the public as " the criminals who wanted to see Germany burn to the ground". The atrocities at this camp cannot be duplicated and I present this blog to you in such detail so that you as well will remember what happened and will help ensure that this doesn't happen again in the future, though it is already happening in other countries right now. The holocaust was the cause of losing one third of the world’s Jewish population. Though I am not a Jew, I do believe it is wrong to prosecute those of other religions solely based on this fact. It is important for all of us to remember the events that led to this discrimination and watch for the beginning signs of this behavior in the life around us. This kind of hatred for other people didn't happen overnight but was based on a growing discrimination.

Pictured above is the Gas chamber. Then the tour was over and we got back on the bus to the train to get back to Munich. When we got there Cassandra and I decided to go walk around until we found something to do. Cassandra wanted a real German beer so we set of in a direction that our guide had been talking about. On the way there we found a stand selling chocolate covered fruits on a stick and candied apples. I have never had a candied apple but I wasn't really feeling like eating a ton of sugar so I went for a chocolate covered apple instead knowing that German chocolate is supposed to be really good. Yeah I know like chocolate was any less sugary... But whatever! Then we kept walking and it was already dark by now as it was about five thirty. We then stumbled upon not the beer hall that our guide had told us was the best but a second one which he said was almost as good. It is the only beer hall in Germany to have survived World War II. We decided to go for it.

We got seated at a table with two other couples which are how they do it in beer halls I guess. It was fine with us but the Asian couple next to us did not look happy about it. We decided to split a dish that had like four different kinds of meat in addition to both getting a beer and some soup. Oh man that soup. It was like goulash and potato soup which pretty much to me was beef stew. It was sooo good! The beer was alright I guess. We didn't really know which to get so we asked the waiter and he was like get this one it is the best and the most famous and it wasn't super expensive so we were like okay sure. I am not a big beer person. It smells bad and tastes bad and doesn't really appeal to me in any way but it was one of those I should do it because I can say I did. I didn't finish it though which I was fine with but I guess it was probably the best beer I have had out of the handful I have had. The meat platter wasn't very good to me. I am not a big meat eater unless it is chicken breast or steak or like hamburger. Meet on the bones kind of freaks me out, not because I don't know that meat is from an animal but I just don't really like to deal with bones and they kind of make me lose my appetite. I did try all of them though. There were two porks, chicken, and duck. I really didn't like the duck. It had a gross aftertaste. But I wasn't feeling too hungry.

Our waiter was kind of funny and when the couple sitting next to us left he tried to get us to talk to the two Korean boys who took their place. We were like not having it though. I did talk to them a bit though because they wanted to know what the thing was that we had. Then we had the waiter bring us our check and left. From there we continued to wander and poke in stores.

We found one with cool Christmas stuff, which I may have bought a few things at. Mostly I was looking for a nice coat to buy because everything in Munich was so cheap. I did find one I liked but they didn't have it in the size I wanted. We probably went to like 8 or 9 different stores. Some of them were scary and coats were like 500 Euros or more. But the one that I liked was only 59! That is pretty cheap for a coat like that. But they only had it bigger and smaller than my size :-( so that was pretty sad. But I guess it wasn’t meant to be. We walked around shopping for a pretty long time. All the stores closed around 8 though so once they did we gave up and decided to go back to the hotel. We stopped at a convenience store and decided to get some snacks though. I got some cherry gummies and a fanta. I also found plain m&m’s! What! They are so hard to find but I found them! The way back to the hotel was really simple because for once the line we were taking was actually going all the way to the end of its route. Every time until now we have been kicked off a few stops before and had to transfer even though the line was supposed to go farther on.

 

When we got back to the hotel we were happy to be able to rest our feet and relax but we were also sad that we weren’t going to have any more time to explore Munich. I really liked Germany and would love to go back. The atmosphere was just very relaxing and much calmer than Aix. For a big city it doesn’t seem bent on rushing around or being too loud. It was relatively quiet and didn’t give me the uneasy/antsy feeling that I usually get in big cities. I really liked all the pretzels too. They were all really good! Overall, it just seems like a pretty nice place. I wouldn’t really want to live there but it was nice to see and experience and I wouldn’t mind in the slightest going back. I wish I had been able to see some of the castle and things around and to get a better sense of direction in the city.

We ate our snacks and watched TV in English which was the late show with Jimmy Fallen who I don’t really know because I regularly don’t watch that show, but it was nice to hear some English. I then took a shower which went fabulously until the shower like freaked out and sent like burning hot water at me. It hurt so badly and I was quick at turning it off but my head hurt for the next five minutes because it had been so hot. I was done with that shower after that. Then I relaxed in bed and attempted to write my journal but I was really tired so I decided to wait and finish it tomorrow. (Which is today, or really very early this morning for you!)