Dachau Concentration Camp

Since the rain prevented us from going to Hitler site (Eagle's Nest), we chose another one on our way back from Austria - The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site. It is only about 25 minutes from the Munich airport, so we were able to squeeze in one last activity before dropping my parents off to head back to the US. The depressing weather was fitting for this depressing site, which probably wasn't the best way to end my parents visit with us. But we had a couple hours to kill, and although depressing, it was an interesting place to visit and get a better understanding of the history of Hitler's rise to power, and the Holocaust. There was so much to read in the museum, but we started to run out of time, so we cut some off at the end and didn't watch the 30-minute video. I had also been to Dachau a few years ago during my trip to Germany, so I knew the layout of the place and rushed my parents through to see some of the barracks, the crematorium, and the execution chambers. It is sickening to see what was done to these people, and a strange feeling to be on the site.

A little history on this particular camp....On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in Dachau. It was the first concentration camp opened in Germany, and served as a model for all Nazi concentration camps that followed. In the twelve years of its existence, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were imprisoned in Dachau and its subcamps - more than 43,000 of them died. There were 32 barracks at the camp, although only a few remain for the memorial site. In 1940 the SS had a crematorium built because the number of dead had risen so dramatically. That area was located outside the prisoner camp and only accessible by passing through the SS camp. In 1942/1943 a second large crematorium (called barrack X) with four furnaces and a gas chamber for mass extermination was built, but it never was put into operation. On April 29, 1945, American troops liberated the survivors. In 1965, the camp was opened to the public as a memorial site.

After we walked around the camp, we raced off to the Munich airport to drop my parents off. Going directly from the concentration camp, it was a bit of a strange and rushed goodbye (they were running a bit late) to what was a wonderful trip with them. We really enjoyed having them visit, and appreciate all the things they did for us while they were here.

This might be a shocker to some, but I had not seen the movie Schindler's List before. I had always heard it was a really good movie (not so much the story, but the way it was put together), and Laura and I brought several movies with us to watch while we were here - that being one of them. So that night when we got back to Kempten, it was a fitting time to watch the movie, while it was all still fresh in our minds.