We left Berlin in the morning and got into Munich in the early afternoon. We didn’t have any plans, but Erik really wanted to visit Dachau, so we threw our luggage into lockers at the Bahnhof(train station) and hopped on the next train! As it turns out, Dachau is barely 15 minutes outside of the city. We got off the train and grabbed a taxi because we really had no clue where to go.
We got to the camp around 3PM, so we had about 2 hours before it closed. A movie was just about to start inside the museum section of the camp, explaining the camp and the Holocaust, so we ran and saw that. We came out of the camp and then just started taking everything in. One of the first things I immediately realized, was that I had been here before. When I was living here in Germany before, I know I had gone to a concentration camp, but I couldn’t remember which specific one. I knew it was this one. I checked out the special prisoner barracks, behind the museum, where they held the very important people.
From there, I headed out into the main courtyard area, where rollcall was taken. There were about 20 or 22 barracks lined up in the camp and every morning, every prisoner had to come to the courtyard for counting. They were forced to stand for hours sometimes, in the rain or the harsh sun. If anyone couldn’t remain standing, they were dragged off for punishment.
There are 2 barracks still standing as examples, you can walk through and view them. The tiny beds were forced to hold 8 or 10 people, there was always massive overcrowding. Everyone was forced to use public restrooms without any privacy.
I headed toward the end of the camp, exploring some area I didn’t remember that well. There is an active church built into the ground at the very end of the camp, along with a nunnery too! If you head off the to left side, you can find the crematorium and gas chambers. It’s a very small building actually, with 1 or 2 smoke stacks. The main gas chamber is open and you can go inside of it. The inside of the gas chamber was the most somber place in the entire camp for me, actually seeing a gas chamber is very horrifying. The interesting thing is that most experts contend the gas chambers in Dachau were never actually used for exterminating people, mostly for fumigation of clothes. It was quicker and easier to just build mass graves and kill using guns.
At this point, it was around 5PM and most of the museums and open areas were being shutdown. I met up with Erik and we headed back to the train station and eventually, Munich. Dachau is a very somber place, it’s amazingly quiet. There weren’t too many people there that day, but everyone was silent. I was the same way, just lost in reflection. It’s important to have memorials like these, so the past is never forgotten.