Dachau Concentration Camp

Today's post is a little heavier (at least to begin with) because on Thursday, September 8th my family visited Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site - it was a privilege to be able to see this memorial and remember the people who lost their lives for one man's selfish and horrible goals.

Dachau was the very first concentration camp to be opened - in March of 1933 - and originally intended to hold Hitler's political opponents, including communists & social democrats. All other concentration camps were modeled after this camp and it was also used to showcase the "excellent care" being provided to the prisoners since it is located just outside the city of Munich. The camp had over 100 sub-camps that were mostly works camps and were located throughout southern Germany and Austria.

The camp's first several years (1933-1938) were primarily focused on detaining German nationals who dissented to Hitler's rise to power and his brand of politics. After Kristallnacht, over 30,000 Jewish men were transported to Dachau - it was a men's camp - so women were not present at any time during it's operation. SS Officers were often trained here before being sent out to other sub-camps, concentration camps and death camps throughout Europe.

 

Within the camp - already a prison itself - there was an actual prison where the inmates who "misbehaved" were kept and punished. Anything from not standing straight at roll call to not making your bed properly could be considered misbehaving and you would be jailed and likely tortured for this. The guard towers (pictured below on the left) were the originals and the grass border was a guaranteed escape option for prisoners - although they would not escape alive. Many prisoners knew that to step on the grass meant instant death, as they would be shot... and many prisoners took this way out. 

 

Within the prison, the floor tiles were pointed out to us - they SS officers boots made a very specific sound on the tiles and prisoners always feared those steps stopping outside their door. It likely meant you would be sent outside and "pole-hung" - which involved chaining a prisoners arms above their head and suspending them from the poles mounted out back. Many prisoners died this way because the strain this position puts the body in causes the lungs to fill with fluid...

Our guide had me read an account from a survivor - the guards tried to trick the man into taking his own life. The guards gave him a length of rope and told him that his wife; who was being held at a separate camp, had committed suicide and so he might as well kill himself too. The man felt such a strong connection with his wife and felt that he'd know if she was no longer alive; he knew the guards were provoking him - so he refused to use the rope to kill himself. Happily he and his wife survived and went on to live a long and happy life.

The camp contained thirty-two barracks; two have been reconstructed today as examples but the other thirty are only marked by the foundations. One of the barracks was for clergy who had been imprisoned and another was the medical barracks but the other thirty were used to house prisoners - and were originally meant to hold about about two hundred people per barrack. At the time that Dachau was liberated in 1945, the camp was holding over 67,000 people.

 

Those imprisoned at Dachau feared being ill and would often show up for roll call and report to work duty even when they were sick, because prisoners taken to the sick bay were often experimented on and many never left the medical barracks alive. Experiments related to high-altitude and hypothermia were conducted and many prisoners died or were left permanently disabled/mentally disabled because of the experiments. They also carried out experiments related to malaria and tuberculosis on patients.  

Dachau was a concentration camp - but not a death camp. While the camp did have a gas chamber on site, it wasn't used to murder prisoners en masse like at death camps; it was used to put to death those who medical experiments had weakened to the point of death and the like. The camp also had a crematorium that was used to get rid of bodies of the thousands murdered in an effort to hide the true numbers of how many died at the camp. Late in 1944, due to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions within the camp, typhus broke out and was the cause of death for hundreds of prisoners.

 

When news of liberation arrived - many of the prisoners were forced on death marches away from the camp and toward other camps farther out from the city of Munich. Hundred of prisoners died on these marches and when American soldiers arrived at the camp in April of 1945, they found thirty train cars filled with the bodies of prisoners who were set to be delivered to Dachau that had been abandoned. The camp was fully liberated in May of 1945, including the liberation of the prisoners who had been forced on the death march.

The number of prisoners incarcerated at Dachau exceeded 200,000 and the number of prisoners who died stands at around 28,000, although there is no way of knowing the actual number of people who died there. The count of 28,000 does not include the years of 1933-1939 and it doesn't include the multitudes of unregistered prisoners. 

Survivors of the camp joined together in 1955 to work toward making the former site into a Memorial and in May of 1965, the camp was reopened as a memorial to the lives of the people who were detained and murdered at Dachau. The goal of the memorial is to remember the suffering and death of those detained at Dachau and facilitate conversation about the Nazi war crimes committed here - with the vow that something like this should "never again" happen.

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After our morning and early afternoon spent at Dachau, since we were already in a suburb of Munich - we headed into the city (yikes at the traffic) and made our way to Hofbrauhaus Munchen! Hofbrauhas in the oldest tavern in Munich; it was built in the 1500's and is well-known worldwide for it's famous brews and Oktoberfest celebrations each September! 

The beer hall is also well-known for it's incredible food. They have their own butcher and bakery and all the food is made from the freshest Bavarian ingredients! They serve beer in traditional 1 liter steins and while we were eating, there was a woman dressed in a traditional Dirndl, selling soft pretzels from a basket she wore around her neck! 

 

The restaurant also his ties to history - Adolf Hitler made the speech establishing the National Socialists Workers Party (or the Nazi Party) at the Hofbrauhas' festival hall in November of 1920. Supposedly there is still a swastika hidden somewhere on the elaborately frescoe'd ceiling but try as we might, Lindsey, James and I couldn't find it anywhere.

I started our meal at Hofbrauhas with some delicious Potato Soup and for my meal I had Kaesespaetzle: homemade spätzle noodles cooked with cheese and caramelized onions! It was so incredibly tasty! And while I posed with the liter(s) of beer, neither of those steins actually belong to me - I was just sampling! My sister tried the Radler Beer; made up of half beer and half lemonade, and it was quite tasty - but if there's one thing Germany didn't do, it was turn me into a beer drinker. 

 

My Mom and I split a dessert of Bavarian Cream and Fresh Fruit and then we all wandered the gigantic tavern - there are three floors, an outdoor space and rooms that go on forever. Some regulars even have special tables that are reserved just for them with specialized sign indicating each little group's name! And we also discovered that regulars are able to lock their stein into a special mug locker for safe-keeping and to be used each time they come to sip a brew! How fun is that?

 

We didn't linger too long after our late meal - we had about an hour's drive back to Garmisch and we decided we'd rather have a more leisurely evening at the resort then wandering through the big city. Plus - we knew we'd be back in Munich on Saturday! 

Where we went today

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial - https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/en/

Hofbrauhaus Munchen - https://www.hofbraeuhaus.de/en/welcome.html