A few miles NW of Munich lies the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. During the Hitler regime, this camp was prototype and administrative center for all others.
Today it stands as a memorial to the millions of holocaust victims and a reminder that this should never happen again in human history. Entrance is free with a minimal charge for audio guides, which are available in many languages.
On the gate into the camp are the words...
"Work makes you free." How ironic - as many prisoners ended up dead.
This museum site is very somber. We saw families, but never saw children laughing and playing. Somehow they knew this is a serious place. Only 2 barracks remain as part of the museum. You can still see the lots where the rest of them stood. The place is immense.
Imagine the crowd of humans packed into rooms like this.
The majority of the victims were Jewish.
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Personal note: I have heard from others who have visited concentration camps that once is enough. I feel the same way. Dachau is a lovely town of about 40 thousand people. Initially we had planned to go back in the evening to Dachau for supper. I could not bring myself to go back. I know the town wishes tourists would not associate it only with the concentration camp... but I'm afraid Dachau will always been engraved in people's minds as a place of horrors.
Personal note: I have heard from others who have visited concentration camps that once is enough. I feel the same way. Dachau is a lovely town of about 40 thousand people. Initially we had planned to go back in the evening to Dachau for supper. I could not bring myself to go back. I know the town wishes tourists would not associate it only with the concentration camp... but I'm afraid Dachau will always been engraved in people's minds as a place of horrors.
I wanted my photos to tell the story. However, by the time I got to the gas chambers, I could not bring myself to capture this in digital image. In my mind, it was more than enough. I have read stories and seen the movie, "The Hiding Place." They have done their research well. The hardest part for me was the human research information. As a nurse myself, I found it appalling that they used "disposable" people (my words) for medical experiments to the point of torture and death.
