Dachau, Germany: Dachau was in use from 1933 until its liberation by American troops in 1945, and was the first concentration camp built by the Nazis. Though primarily used for detention, the camp was also the site of “exterminations” by gas and firing range in the later years of its existence. Because Dachau was one of the first camps liberated by the Allied forces, many of the photographs that were initially published by international journalists were of this camp. Allied troops discovered thousands of bodies piled in railcars, final victims of the retreating Nazi forces.
Part of the camp has been maintained as a memorial. Among the attractions is the main gate to the camp, which bears the phrase, “Work will set you free” welded into the heavy iron doors. The memorial itself traces the route that a prisoner would take when brought to the camp, entering though the main gate, lining up in the roll call area and the shunt room, in which prisoners were stripped of their personal belongings, forced to take showers and have their heads shaved. The cell block features first hand reports of life in the prison, written by survivors. The crematorium still stands today, and a number of plaques and memorials are placed around it.
I believe that there is an inaccuracy in this paragraph. There is no Polish police at Dachau. Dachau is in Bavaria, just outside of Munich. Perhaps there is a confusion with one of the camps in Poland.
Dachau is indeed a memorable place. I had lived in Munich for several months before I had the courage to take the train out to see it. Just the idea of taking a train that said “Dachau” on the front was a little overwhelming. I went when I did because my son came to visit me in Germany and he wanted to go. So we went together and I was glad. He was just the person to share it with. The horror of just being in the place where such things took place was like carying around a heavy weight for days and days. The further we looked the heavier it got. I saw many such memorials. There were times when just being on the street in Germany or in certain places brought up memories of things that I had not lived but others had and their souls still wander uneasily in those places. And yet in some strange sense the whole experience made for me a sense of completion. Everywhere there were little piles of stones. The physical act of placing memory stones was somehow healing.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum- Washington D.C. USA
Dachau Concentration Camp- Dachau, Germany
My first understanding of the Holocaust took place in 4th grade while reading the book “Number the Stars”, by Lois Lowry. It is a tale about a fearless girl, Annemarie, in the time of unbelievable oppression and devastation. Annemarie connected me to the idea of the Holocaust, but left me blind to concentration-camp-living standards and the number of those executed. At 10 I didn’t need to know.
It was 4 years later that I stepped onto the elevator of the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C., as the elevator plugged to the 4th and top floor of the museum I recalled the story of Annemarie. With her presence burning in my mind I step off the elevator, at that moment I was filled with inappropriate giddiness and the overwhelming presence of death. I was surrounded by 25 of my classmates, I’m sure we reeked of disrespect and fulfilled any stereotypes of 14 year old, but nonetheless we stared exploring the grey and glass pained building. With my book about Joseph, a Holocaust victim, in hand I walked the halls; looking at pictures, reading stories, and learning that not everyone had a story like Annemarie.
While walking along I turned a corner and spotted shoes. Hundreds and hundreds of ballet-like dirty black and brown shoes, all piled on top of each other, as I stared I realized there were a thousand or so pairs of shoes. Once I finally drew my eyes away from the pile, I looked up to read, “gas chamber victim’s shoes…”
I. Lost. It.
People wear those shoes.
I wear shoes.
People took those shoes off and then they died.
You know those moments where you are happy and to anyone else it is completely absurd? That was me. A 14-year-old girl facing obsidian-colored shoes thanking god every time I took my shoes off I lived.
I slowly melted down to the idea of people no longer having feet to wear shoes, their bodies now ash, and to my knowledge blown away by the wind.
Families no longer whole, kids no longer able to say the words mom or dad, people no longer to love. It was at this moment when I understood how bad this has really been, and if their had been a pair of shoes for ever person lost in the Holocaust it would take a lot more floors to hold them.
That wasn’t the last time I would face material remains of the Holocaust. Six years after my experience in D.C. I went to Dachau Concentration Camp in Dachau, Germany. Again I recalled Annemarie, and the memory of the shoes flooded back, the thought even more grim this time around, knowing that some of those shoes could very well of met the large court-year-area which I now stood divided from by an iron gate marked with the words, “arbeit macht frei”, “with work brings freedom.”
This wasn’t just a concentration camp, this was the place that made Annemarie real and showed that those shoes belonged to people. As we walked in a classmate snidely remarks, “You all need to be respectful.” Like I could possibly disrespect Annemarie and the owners of the shoes, they had been with me for years, years longer than my classmate and I couldn’t picture coupling this moment with disrespect, I had already done that once before.
Two barracks still stood, I walked into one letting my hand touch the doorframe, I wondered how many times people had been ripped away from it. Somber thoughts just about flooded my mind at every corner here. While Dachau has gas chambers, they are said to never of been used, it’s hard to accept as true when facing them, but the mind does funny things to convince, letting me live in peace about it. As I walked past the barracks, there are two long rows of wood frames with numbers etched in white stones, former barrack that have been town down. Looking down the rows to see a girl, the same classmate who made us aware of our respect, yes her, is smoking a Marlboro light. Puff, puff, puff. People unwillingly died on the same ground she stands, and she chooses to partake in a proven method of suicide.
As my fingers lingered over the twisted wire fences and my feet scrapped the hard-pressed dirt ground I thought about the power people had to make these places real, and the level of misunderstanding we have with each other. What could make people so different from one another? So different they need to attempt to erase groups of people. My time spent in places like the holocaust museum and
Dachau has taught me the importance of seeking to understand. Once I’ve started to really seek out who people are and why they are that way, it has made understanding cultures, people and life easier and well as more exciting. I am not hung up on the way something is, I just see it as that.
While abroad last semester, I had the opportunity to visit the concentration camp at Dachau. Although less notorious than Auschwitz,(which I have previously visited) my experience at Dachau was much more intense/moving.
From the moment you walk beneath the iron gates that read “Work will set you free,” the tour follows the path a detainee would follow upon entering the camp. The tour is a self-guided audio tour which I strongly believe made it extremely moving and provided ample time to personally reflect. I can very clearly remember the feeling in my gut as I stood in the crematorium and broke down in tears.