Dachau
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Today we went to Dachau, a town about 45mins from Munich. It is also the site of the first Concentration Camp of Hitler’s Reign. As it is a very sensitive topic we will not write a lot about it, and will not include any photos, this is more for our record than anything else.
Dachau was opened on March 21 1933 in an abandoned warehouse as a camp for political prisoners, mainly opponents of Hitler. For the first month or so it was run fairly well, although there was never quite enough food, but from early May 1933 it took a turn for the worse after the SS took control. It quickly became the first ‘Concentration Camp’, the one from which all others were modelled. By the time American soldiers arrived in 1945 there were 60,000 prisoners in a camp designed to hold 6,000 and over 40,000 people were recorded to have lost their lives in the 12 years it was open, though of course no-one could even hazard a guess as to how accurate this figure is.
There was a movie to watch with actual footage, which was far more graphic than either of us were prepared for but the day was a very moving experience for us both.
posted by Maarty @ 12:00 pm,
