Dachau Concentration Camp
Dachau, Germany
It's not about reconstructing the past, it's about remembering it.
Over the years I have realized that I am probably most passionate about education and I love school, reading, and experiencing life through what I have learned. During the summer between my junior and senior years of high school I was accepted to the Governor's Scholars Program in Kentucky. The program is a summer residential program for five weeks at one of three college campuses in Kentucky where students attend "intriguing" classes and meet other students from all over the state who share the same passion for learning. My focus class at GSP was Social Studies and Communication. We learned communication skills and then implemented what we learned through history. Our project was to interview WWII veterans and our interviews we sent to be apart of the Veterans History Project. This sparked my interest in WWII history and the lives of individuals who lived during the war. I was fortunate enough to interview Mr. Rose, a WWII veteran who help to liberate Dachau Concentration Camp and after interviewing him, I decided that I had to go there at some point in my life.
Flash forward almost three years and that dream came true. After I was accepted to Harlaxton I knew that one of my weekend trips would be to Dachau. Originally I planned to go to Germany over the second long weekend to visit both Munich and Berlin but coming here with plans does not usually work. Therefore four of my friends and I skipped our last classes and the Valedictorian dinner and jet-setted to Germany for the last weekend. All semester I have talked about how important it was for me to visit Dachau and I am grateful that Erin, Haley, Bri and Jude went along with me to this special place.We stayed in London Stansted Airport on Wednesday night and caught an early flight on Thursday morning into Munich. None of us spoke any German and I was very anxious about how we were going find our way around a foreign country. As soon as we landed we had to buy subway tickets to get to the city center and our hostel. I walked up to the kiosk and everything was in German. Luckily, there was a option for English but I still did not know what we needed. A lady beside me must have noticed my confused demeanor and with her thick German accent she offered to help me, in English. That started my love for the beautiful city of Munich.
After a 45 minute train ride we made it to our stop, Hauptbahnhof. (Good luck pronouncing that, I definitely couldn't) We finally found our hostel, Wombats, and dropped our stuff off until check in and headed to find the city center, Marienplatz. My second encounter with the German language happened in a little cafe and I tried ordering a pretzel pizza, once again I failed miserably. Exhaustion set in and we made our way back to the hostel and fell asleep until about seven. That night we went to Hofbrauhaus in Munich. Picture a LARGE beer hall with the traditional beer girls walking around selling pretzels and one LITER beer mugs being clanked together everywhere. It was what I pictured traditional Germany to be and we all had a lot of fun!!
Friday was the day that I anticipated most. A man named Gordon led tours of Dachau from our hostel and we went and met him in the lobby at 10:15. A short train and bus ride later and we were standing at the visitors center in front of the concentration camp. Gordon explained to us that he was not there to bash the Germans who worked there or the ones living around the camp. He made it clear that they lived in a time where there was no Facebook or Twitter and that individuals living in the city of Dachau knew there was a camp but many (truthfully) did not know what was happening behind those walls. I thought that the way Gordon opened up the tour was perfect. The misconception that all German people are Nazis, or that they are all bad, is terrible. Granted what some Nazi's did was horrific and in my eyes will never be forgiven, but we have to be reminded that not every German citizen supported their government. Just like not every American now supports our government almost 70 years later. Another concept that Gordon made sure we understood was that Dachau was no a place for REMEMBERING and not reconstructing. He explained that the Nazi regime is not glorified and that the museum is not about what they did during the years of the camp. The museum however is about the lives of the prisoners who lived in the camp. Pictures, first hand experiences and artifacts were everywhere. They did not want reconstruct every barrack and have the watch towers opened because they felt as if they would be reconstructing something terrible in the past instead of remembering the lives of those who were affected by Dachau.
Dachau was the very first camp EVER built. It was built in 1933 and despite contrary belief ONLY housed German prisoners for the first 5 years of operation. We entered the camp, just like every officer, prisoner and eventually liberator did. The gates read, "Arbeit Macht Frei" translated roughly to Works means Freedom. This was just the first lie that every prisoner would read. The first sight was the massive roll call square that would have been in front of the barracks and behind the German maintenance building. It was there that the prisoners would stand, sometimes for hours, and be counted and given the names of those who were to be punished. While Dachau was a concentration camp the top of the maintenance building read "There is a path to freedom, its milestones are: Obedience, Honesty, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Hard Work, Discipline, Sacrifice, Truthfulness, Love of thy Fatherland." Those words were taken down after Dachau was liberated because the prisoners all knew it was a lie. We eventually made our way into the maintenance building where every prisoner was showered, given their new uniform and where the punishments would occur within the shower rooms.
In front of the maintenance building is now a sculpture created by Nando Gild, a concentration camp survivor. Bodies are intertwined in what looks like barbed wire within the sculpture. It is a visual representation what happened at Dachau.
After liberation, all the barracks were leveled but the museum did reconstruct two to give a representation of the three stages of prisoner life. It was unreal to see the living conditions that the prisoners slept in. In the last room where there were only slabs of "bunks" we could not even go in. Per regulations now in Germany the room is to cramped for visitors to walk inside. Now imagine 500 prisoners all sleeping in that room. We then walked the path down towards the end of the camp and that image is the very first picture of this blog. It was then that I went into a deep thought. I have studied so much of WWII history and even Dachau but nothing could prepare me for those feelings that I felt in that moment. I realized that I was walking down a path that so many others had but many did not survive.
There was a crematorium at Dachau but it was completely separate from the main camp. Today there is a bridge that connects the two so visitors can see what the crematorium looked like. You have to remember that most of the buildings at Dachau are original and the crematorium was one of them. I walked into a place that had a history of so much death. One could not help but get emotional here. On the wall was a plaque dedicated to 4 British female soldiers who were hung there. It read, "But the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall no torment touch them." That saying was one of the most powerful ones that stayed with me throughout the day. Gordon then led us out the back and towards a path. He told us that we were basically standing on a large burial ground and to take a walk through the path. Along the way were plaques where boxes of ashes were buried. It was unbelievable to be walking through such lively trees with birds singing and the sun shining but where so much death had occurred. It really set in that Dachau was a place to remember those who perished or lived through such an ordeal and not just a place where such horrific things happened.
The last part of the tour ended at the end of the path. There was a lone statue of a man. Gordon told us that the statute had been there since the 50's when the average age of a surviving prisoner was 25. The statue reads, "To honor the dead and to warn the living." Dachau was such an incredible experience for me to have. Not only did my academics come full circle but I was able to pay my respects to the prisoners and dead of WWII. I will never forget what I saw and felt at that place.
We got back to Munich after Dachau and headed towards the city center again. We tried to see the clock figures dance at 6 but they never came out. We then decided to climb another clock tower to see views of the city. It was breathtaking and I think I fell in love then. Earlier in the day Jude had asked Gordon where the English Gardens were and he told us that we would have to take a subway there because it was a far walk. While we were on top of the clock though we spotted the gardens and decided to walk there. We laughed, told stories and truly enjoyed each other's company on our way there. Yeah, it was a long walk and yeah my feet were really sore after we eventually got back to the hostel but we were able to see a lot of Munich and I loved it!
I am so thankful that I was able to go to the one place that I so desperately wanted to go during my Harlaxton experience. Munich, Dachau and the journey in itself will be memories that I will forever look back on and smile at.
