2009-11-03

Visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp

Concentration camps are not fun places to visit while on vacation. They are interesting. They are educational. They are depressing. They are not fun. And I have now visited two of them since moving to Europe. Gross-Rosen in Poland, and now Dachau in Germany.

I was prepared this time. I was prepared for the “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” sign on the entrance. For the quiet. For the grey openness of the camp. I was not prepared for the solemnity of the museum or the cramped quarters of the barracks and the terrible images they evoked.

Dachau - Front Gate

Housed in what used to be the maintenance building, the museum gives a descriptive history of the museum that is emotionally draining. The amount of information, pictures, first-hand accounts, letters, historical descriptions, and statistics is overwhelming.

Dachau - Museum

Despite being used as a model propaganda camp, tens of thousands of people died at Dachau. Many due to disease brought about by the terrible and cramped living quarters. Today there is a model barrack demonstrating just how cramped the living situation was. In rooms meant for about 250 people, over a thousand people were forced to live as best they could. It is a disturbing thought and a vivid display of the horror of Dachau.

Entry is free, although I suggest getting an audio guide. It will only set you back €3 and will allow you to go at your own pace all the while listening to a very thorough, and sometimes quite disturbing, history of Dachau. Vacations tend to be an opportunity to get away, to enjoy yourself and relax. But visiting Dachau offers insight into a period of history that is still relatively fresh in the minds of some, and fading in the minds of others. Take a day to visit Dachau.

Dachau - Camp Grounds

For more on visiting concentration camps check out the two different pieces that Amanda Kendle has written for Europe a la Carte on Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau (both of which are well worth reading).