Dachau, Germany

None of us really knew what to expect when visiting one of the WWII concentration camps. Amy especially was not keen at all but knew that it was something she should do.
We had all heard stories about people going to these places and breaking down at what they saw, or the haunting feelings they experienced walking the grounds.
Needless to say it was a very somber, and uneasy place to walk around. We watched a 30 minute documentary which showed the camp in the 1940’s in full swing. It showed how the people were tricked into thinking that these camps were for there safety and protection to start with and then became a place for slave labour, and death for so many innocent people. It showed some pretty horrific images of demoralization and death, all of which make you realise how lucky we are to live in a different time.
We wandered the grounds, quietly, trying to imagine how 40000 people were squeezed into a camp built for 6000. We walked down the hallway of the bunker where prisoners were kept and tortured, some of which would spend more than 6 months at a time in complete darkness. We saw the hanging posts behind the bunker where the guards would tie a persons hand together and then hang them from a large hook, dangling there for hours at a time. We saw the living quarters (rebuilt in the 60’s as the originals were to rotten and filthy to keep standing), 3 tier bunk beds, no more than 6 foot long and 3 foot wide. At the end of the war there upto 500 people living in a room built for 50, everyone sleeping on these bunk beds, no one was aloud to sleep on the floor.
Originally there was 30 rows of living quarters all of which were torn down in the 60’s because of the filth and disease from the way they were used in the war. Now only 1 row remains that is the rebuilt buildings.

We saw the crematorium, a new one had to be built during the war to cope with the amount of bodies that need disposing of. We also saw the gas chamber, that was built for mass executions but was never used at Dachau. It was made to look like a shower block. The word “Brausebad” (shower) written across the doorway to make the prisoners feel at ease. There were fake shower heads installed that released the gas. It was amazing to see how sneaky the Nazi’s were.
Behind the crematorium, next to the old firing range, with blood gutter, was a memorial stone with the words “Grave of many thousands unknown”.