Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Well, during Mom's visit, we went to Dachau Concentration Camp (The first ever concentration camp opened in 1933). We first had to go to Munich then get on the S-Bahn to go to Dachau. Then, from Dachau we had to take a bus to the actual camp. Well, when we arrived in Munich it was a little more difficult than I thought to find the S-Bahn station since it was more of an U-Bahn station than an S-Bahn station, but after we raced down the stairs, we finally found it and then were on our way to Dachau. Once we arrived in Dachau it wasn't that hard to find the bus stop we needed since it was clearly labeled "Dachau Gedenkstätte" so we just waited for the bus to show up to take it to the camp.
When we got to the camp, the first thing we saw really was the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign on the gate. HOWEVER, even though there was a path to go around the building so the gate could stay closed to people could take pics of the sign, people decided they wanted to go through the gate, so I was lucky enough to get a picture before someone went through, and ruined it for my mom. Anyways, once we went in, we saw all of the barracks that had been rebuilt. They rebuilt 2 since the rest were demolished in the 60's b/c they were falling apart. So we then went into the Dachau museum which was also the main building of the camp. We went in and looked around for a bit. It's mostly filled with exhibits from the camp, but it doesn't have anything really from the camp times except a couple of desks which were actually used when new arrivals came into the camp. The other thing that was really interesting in the Main Building was the shower room. It wasn't the "infamous" shower room, this was where people literally went to get clean. They had this thing you could look through and it showed you what it looked like in the 40's. That was really cool. After looking in the main building, we went out back to the bunker which held the prison. Also, there was the execution wall. This was where prisoners were brought and shot. It was a little depressing since you knew that about 60 yrs ago ppl were killed on this spot. INside of the bunker there were the cells of the prisoners. After leaving the bunker, we went into the Barracks and saw the beds and the bathrooms. This was a little different than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be smaller than it was, but it's still not adequate living conditions, don't get me wrong. It just wasn't what I thought it was going to be. Anyways, after seeing this, we went down the path of the rest of the barracks. They still have the foundations, but that's all. Like I said, they've all been demolished. At the end of the row of barracks there are multiple churchs and then to the left there's the crematorium. Here's where it got really depressing. You really felt what these people went through. When I walked into the gas chamber, I felt something just pressing on me, like I could feel the sadness of all these people who died in this room. The actual ovens were really small, but still depressing. Mom, Ryan and I took a picture in front of one of them, but it was a depressing foto. After the crematorium, we left and went to Munich to do something cheerful for the rest of the day.
Dachau was really depressing , but I highly recommend it for anyone looking to experience a concentration camp. Very informative, and one should visit it once in one's lifetime.
- comments