Munich - Dachau

Had our first day in Munich - and decided to spend it in a not so joyful way - at the Dachau concentration Camp Memorial. It was a guided tour, which takes you on the train and bus to Dachau (app. the town wants to change its name, however it would be too confusing for tourists and thats how they make their money). Dachau as a town is much bigger than I thought. they have a memorial route marked out from the train station (where the poor people had to get off the cattle cars) to the camp as this was the route the prisoners had to march in appalling conditions. Once there, there is no charge and it is huge. You walk a way before you meet the gate which has the words (in german) 'work free's' on them. Dachau was actually the first concentration camp set up by the Nazis back in 1933 - for political prisoners (think communists, leaders of the other political parties that opposed Hitler, even priests who spoke out against him) not acutally for jews. It wasnt until 1938 when our little dictator declared the Jewish solution (all this before the war began) that Jews started to arrive (plus gypsies, homosexuals, homeless, mentally disabled). the site held 37 barracks which was suppossed to house about 200 each, however in 1944, 45 they each held up to 2000, all squashed in on top of each other. When the site became a memorial site in 1964 (i think) the barracks had to be demolished due to structures fall apar, but what they did was reconstruct 2 barracks like the orgional ones so you get an idea of the conditions (with orgional toilets and sinks). they have left the concrete foundations of the other barracks so you get an idea of the size of the place the detainee prison for 'special prisoners' (think very bad - tortured by SS, starved, etc) is still in its orgional form (very spooky as they have photos of the prisoners that were recorded as being in each cell over the time in that cell - esp. with some having died in those cells). the rest of the area in admin is now a museum with lots of information and photos and even a whipping block with whip that was used as punishment with photos of it being used. I didnt know, but the Laufwaffte? (air force) used some of the prisoners in special experiments carried out in the medical block. these involved how cold water can be (think pilots shot down over the sea) before a pilot dies in it (hypothermia) and what clothing protects them the best. so the poor prisoners were put in this freezing ice bath with controlled temps and timed etc to see their reaction to the cold (plus photos). the other one was how high pilots can fly before they black out (think compression chamber) prisoners put in and timed at diff. altitudes to see what happens to them (they die). Also injecting prisoners with salt water to see how long a pilot could survive drinking salt water if shot down in the ocean. Quite horrific, what was worse was it was all meticoulously recorded and even filmed. Any way, after coping with all that we then walked to the perimeter fence where there was a grass area (shoot to kill if any one stepped on the grass),deep ditch, barbed wire rolls, watch towers and electric fence plus another ditch on other side. (only one person ever escaped). After that was the cremortorium ovens (it wasnt a death camp, mainly a labour camp) however they burnt bodies of dead prisoners (either tortured to death, shot, died from sickness or starvation) there. there were large beams above them, where the SS would hang people, and threw them straight into the ovens).There was a gas chamber which you walked through (only used on about 7 prisoners as an exxperiment to see if it worked) which was horrible. At the back of the camp there are now 4 chapels built, russian orthadox, (25,000 russian prisoners came here and most died) a catholic one, a protestant one and a Jewish one. the jewish one was so symbolic because all the stones and labour came from Israel, who constructed it with the help of Jewish survivors. You could see a video about the camp, with real footage taken by the Germans. Also the liberation of the camp by the Americans and what they found and saw.(bodies waiting to be cremated left in a pile outside the cremortoriam, bodies in cattle cars waiting to be taken away). they made the people of Dachau at the time come and look at these sights, and you can see footage of their reaction on the video (shocked and horrified - they didnt know - yeah right!). Any way - a very sobering day, with a very somber group leaving after 4 hours plus. I think they need to keep places like this so people dont forget (big sign there - 'never forget' in 5 languages). I have put all the photos together - please take time to look at them because everyone needs to know