Dachau - 1st March 2009
Well, do you know of another Dachau?
I don't want to write too much about my thoughts on what I saw there; I would prefer for the pictures to speak for themselves. However, I will give you a little background info...
Dachau, about twenty minutes by train outside Munich, was the first of the Nazi 'Labour Camps' and was the only one to span the entire twelve years of the Third Reich. Between 1933 and 1945, some 40,000 souls are recorded as dying here. How many actually died here no-one knows. Many of the people sent here were considered 'less than human' and it was not felt necessary to record their deaths. On their arrival at the camp they were told that they were subhuman, worthless, 'pieces of shit'. Nothing that happened to them here would cause them not to believe those initial greetings.
Whilst many more were exterminated at Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and the others, Dachau was the first one, and the prototype for the Death Camps, where people were only sent for one reason: to work until they died. At Dachau they tried things out, experimented, developed their methods, refined their procedures. It was a blueprint for all the other camps. It was here that they carried out the first medical experiments on the inmates, designed the layout of the camps to destroy, demoralise and sap the spirit of the people sent here. The first gas chamber was built here after they realised how effective Zyklon B was at eradicating their pest problem. Dachau may not have the highest numbers, but without it, the ones that followed would not have been so effective and efficient.
What is here today, is a mixture of original buildings and reconstruction. After liberation by the Allied Forces in 1945, the camp was used as a refugee camp for many years. In the 1960's the huts were finally torn down, before they fell down. There was much talk of erasing all traces of the camp's existence but, today, it remains as a reminder of what took place between 1933 and 1945. The main buildings inside the compound are original, as are the buildings immediately outside the gates. The crematoria are both original, the second, larger one, 'Barrack X', being constructed after the original ovens couldn't cope with the throughput.
The sleeping quarters are reconstructions, showing the different phases of the camp. In the photos you can see how the later bed units are designed to cram more bodies in to the same space. Each hut was design to accommodate 500 prisoners, yet towards the end, several thousand would be squeezed in. Consider the logistical problems of hygiene and sanitation. Personal space was never a major issue.
One final thought about the prisoners' huts. Most people are aware of the physical cruelty that was prevalent in the camps, what you may not appreciate is the level of mental cruelty that accompanied it. In the huts, the inmates, starving to death, weakened by disease, demoralised, with no hope or prospect of a future, were subject to unbelievable mental torture. Beds had to be made each day with military precision, or suffer a beating. Floors, tables, benches, tables, chairs, had to be cleaned and polished to a high shine, or suffer a beating.
Bedding was deliberately designed in striped patterns that were impossible to align
All the buildings were wooden and no cleaning supplies were made available.
These were people who had no hope, no incentive, little food, yet they were still expected to put in a full day's work making munitions, or carrying out pointless tasks designed to break the spirit. If they failed in any of these areas, they could be beaten, have their food rations cut, or simply killed.
Dachau is here to remind us that this should never happen again. So can someone explain Zimbabwe to me?
Click here for the next bit
I don't want to write too much about my thoughts on what I saw there; I would prefer for the pictures to speak for themselves. However, I will give you a little background info...
Dachau, about twenty minutes by train outside Munich, was the first of the Nazi 'Labour Camps' and was the only one to span the entire twelve years of the Third Reich. Between 1933 and 1945, some 40,000 souls are recorded as dying here. How many actually died here no-one knows. Many of the people sent here were considered 'less than human' and it was not felt necessary to record their deaths. On their arrival at the camp they were told that they were subhuman, worthless, 'pieces of shit'. Nothing that happened to them here would cause them not to believe those initial greetings.
Whilst many more were exterminated at Auschwitz, Treblinka, Sobibor, and the others, Dachau was the first one, and the prototype for the Death Camps, where people were only sent for one reason: to work until they died. At Dachau they tried things out, experimented, developed their methods, refined their procedures. It was a blueprint for all the other camps. It was here that they carried out the first medical experiments on the inmates, designed the layout of the camps to destroy, demoralise and sap the spirit of the people sent here. The first gas chamber was built here after they realised how effective Zyklon B was at eradicating their pest problem. Dachau may not have the highest numbers, but without it, the ones that followed would not have been so effective and efficient.
What is here today, is a mixture of original buildings and reconstruction. After liberation by the Allied Forces in 1945, the camp was used as a refugee camp for many years. In the 1960's the huts were finally torn down, before they fell down. There was much talk of erasing all traces of the camp's existence but, today, it remains as a reminder of what took place between 1933 and 1945. The main buildings inside the compound are original, as are the buildings immediately outside the gates. The crematoria are both original, the second, larger one, 'Barrack X', being constructed after the original ovens couldn't cope with the throughput.
The sleeping quarters are reconstructions, showing the different phases of the camp. In the photos you can see how the later bed units are designed to cram more bodies in to the same space. Each hut was design to accommodate 500 prisoners, yet towards the end, several thousand would be squeezed in. Consider the logistical problems of hygiene and sanitation. Personal space was never a major issue.
One final thought about the prisoners' huts. Most people are aware of the physical cruelty that was prevalent in the camps, what you may not appreciate is the level of mental cruelty that accompanied it. In the huts, the inmates, starving to death, weakened by disease, demoralised, with no hope or prospect of a future, were subject to unbelievable mental torture. Beds had to be made each day with military precision, or suffer a beating. Floors, tables, benches, tables, chairs, had to be cleaned and polished to a high shine, or suffer a beating.
Bedding was deliberately designed in striped patterns that were impossible to align
All the buildings were wooden and no cleaning supplies were made available.
These were people who had no hope, no incentive, little food, yet they were still expected to put in a full day's work making munitions, or carrying out pointless tasks designed to break the spirit. If they failed in any of these areas, they could be beaten, have their food rations cut, or simply killed.
Dachau is here to remind us that this should never happen again. So can someone explain Zimbabwe to me?
Click here for the next bit