Day 17 and 18

Day 17

I have consolidate day 17 and 18 because we decided we needed a relaxing day so spent most of it online researching what there was to see in Munich as well as taking a few short walks to give the legs some time to recover. After some discussion we decided that Day 18 was going to be a guided tour to Dachau (the concentration camp memorial)

Day 18

To say today was educational would be a gross understatement. Also my awareness of how uninformed I am about the rest of the world and it's past became even more evident, a thing I will begin to remedy upon my return.

The tour started at 9:15am so we set out around 8:30am to find the tour company office as well as get our usual morning coffee (well second as we had the dodgy one that comes with breakfast). We found it without too much trouble then went seeking "good" coffee which we have come to realise is almost non existent as most places use automated machines not proper coffee machines.

Our tour guide was a very nice and interesting guy called Levi, from the USA living in Munich with his wife and almost 3 year old boy who interestingly is already in pre school learning English, German and French!!!!

It as a quick train and bus ride to the site.

Now before I begin a little warning, the topic of today's blog is not for the faint of heart and could be a little distressing, there are no images of anything disturbing, just my recollection of the tour and thoughts.

I would also like to put here a disclaimer, this post does not constitute fact as far as I have not validated anything that I was told today so am just repeating it but could also have it incorrect, I think the general numbers are with range though.

First a brief overview, Dachau is a small, ancient town 10 minutes outside Munich and it dates back around 1200 years. It is also the location of Hilter's very first concentration camp and of which all others were modelled. This facility was also used as a training ground for Hitler's terror troops the SS. This terror force reached 1.2 million in size at the height of the war. Over 200,000 people were admitted to this facility, 43,000 of them lost their lives. The horrifying thing to realise about this is that it was by no means the biggest or most brutal, it was just where it begun and as difficult as it is to believe was operational some 6 years prior to the start of the the second world war. The camp was liberated by allied forces, 29 April 1945 and was one of the only concentration camps that remained open for the entire war. This memorial site was opened in 1965 as a symbol of rememberance and to honor those who died and those who survived.

This was the gate that greeted inmates when they first arrived on the train, this statement translates to "Freedom through work" and was used to mock those entering and to give them some idea of what lay in store for them, 10-16 hours of hard labour every day bar Christmas because Hitler was such a generous soul.

The majority of the complex housed buildings like this one, 30+ of them. This is a replica as the originals were torn down shortly after the camp was liberated as they were in pretty bad condition.

These are the foundations of the other buildings.

Each building had a number painted on it, these plaques show what number they were. 

The buildings were origanlly designed to house 50 people in each section, each building had 4 of these sections so holding a total of 200 people. At the height of the over crowding, 1200-1500 people resided in one these buildings.

In winter in Dachau it can reach temperatures of 25 degrees below zero. The only warmth that was offered to the prisoners was each others body warmth and blankets that contained human hair. This was gathered from all inmates when they were "processed" into the camp. This processing involved taking the persons belongings, they were then shaved with a blunt piece of metal, head, chest etc and then given a uniform which allocated them a number and tag them with a symbol which I will explain a little later, this was to take what was left of their identity away.

This was a bridge that was built for the memorial site to give better access to the krematorium and gas chamber. Again a little warning there are some grim concepts coming.

This was the first krematorium built and it's sole purpose was to make the evidence of the atrocities disappear. These would burn night and day.

Soon the body count was so high they had to build another whole building with 4 more burners which burnt 7 times hoter than the original, to increase efficiency.

When the ash build up so much they just scattered it all over the grounds, there are plaques all over the place to remember those thousands of unknown people.

We also found this

This being the wall where people were stood up and shot, to touch the wall was an odd sensation, very very heavy.

The next part was one of the more powerful and horrific areas, the gas chamber. The horrific nature of this section became clear when the tour guide told us that people bought here were told that they were being resettled and as they do in prisoner processing they needed to be disinfected and showered before they could leave. They were told to derobe, they were also asked to put a label on their pile of belongings so when they returned they could find it again.

They were shown to this door, which has above it "shower" in old German.

As you can see there are even fake shower heads on the roof to give the perception that all was well.

They then proceeded to lock them in and through these little holes in the walls would drop poison pellets and pumped hot air into the chamber. An hour later they would open up the chamber and prisoners would stack the bodies in the next room ready to be cremated.

The sheer shocking nature these events and being in a room where things like that occurred was overwhelming and just a little scary. There was such a stigma around the word for shower in German that it was replaced with the French version.

This statue was interesting, it was erected by some of the survivors and was dubbed "the uncertainty of the liberated man". The guide said it depicted the image of those survivors who were "liberated" but had nothing to go back to.

Another powerful monument, said in the 5 main languages used in the camp, "Never again".

This bell is rung just before 3pm every day, that was around about the time of day that the allied forces liberated the camp in 1945.

The chain of solidarity, this was really interesting. Each of the symbols on these links of the chain meant something. Each prisoner was given a symbol on their uniform which designated them as to what they were, politician, religious leader, Jew, criminal, second offerenders etc etc. The idea was that it labelled people and was thought that it would divide the prisoners through judgement and prejudice, it in fact in some little way helped.

This was called the path of freedom and was a free range area that prisoners were aloud to go as long as they didn't congregate more than 3-4 at a time. Apparently a lot of the journals of the survivors talk about this place and where it was they could meet up with others and bolster hope and faith, very powerful walking down here.

These were individual prison cells which more high ranking prisoners or politically significant people were kept like British intelligence agents. They would only get hot meals once every 4 days and bread and thin soup the other times. Their rooms often had heaters in them but they were rarely turned on and were there just for show.

This has a quote from a survivor, I am sorry but I couldn't read the name that quoted it, if anyone reads this and knows the owner please let me know and I will update it.

"At about two in the morning the key jingles in the first cell door at the other end of the passageway. Immediately everyone is awake. With a metallic thud the loosened shackle falls to the floor. The prisoner from number one takes the first steps to the bunker courtyard. A shot rings out, a life is extinguished."

We then saw a 20 minute film which can only be seen to be believed.

The tour finished up pretty much after the film so we headed back to the hotel on the bus then train.

There ends our 18th day, pretty profound and really glad we got an opportunity to visit the site.

Tomorrow is mostly travel so will likely be a short post BUT should have a few pictures of our new trusty steeds for our week long cycling tour.