Visiting Concentration Camp Dachau: The Nazi Camp Near Munich as a Memorial & Reminder of Past Evil

Opened in 1933, Dachau Concentration Camp served as a prototype for all subsequent camps in the Nazi network until its liberation by the Allies in 1945. Visitors today can tour the infamous compound that housed over 200,000 prisoners during its twelve year operation. Opened to the public in 1965, many of the original structures are intact and the prisoner barracks have been restored. Chapels and prayer centers representing various religious faith traditions complete the 2-3 hour tour. Dachau is located thirty minutes outside of Munich, Germany, and represents an important World War II site for visitors of all ages.

Sixty-three years after World War II ended, it is easy for younger generations to forget the horrors associated with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. German students are required to visit at least one concentration camp during their high school years. Dachau is a memorial to the thousands that died in the camp yet it is also a tangible warning that the world must “never forget.” In 1945, the first involuntary camp “tourists” were local citizens whose homes surrounded the camp. These were the first persons to witness vividly the evils that occurred in their quiet Munich suburb. Today, visitors come voluntarily to learn and understand, to reflect and to pray, and, above all, to be reminded.

Visitors enter the camp at the south entrance and begin the tour at Dachau’s museum. The exhibits and the brief documentary film chart the rise of National Socialism and focus on the role of Dachau as state sponsored crimes against humanity. The original gate proclaims “Arbeit Macht Frei,” (Work Makes Freedom) a phrase found at all concentration camps. Reconstructed barracks allow visitors to see firsthand how prisoners lived and why frequent outbreaks like cholera took so many lives. The guard towers, barbed wire, and high walls surrounding the enclosure portray a compound separated from a residential community within earshot of the camp.

The Crematorium and gas chambers stand at the northern corner of Dachau. Although never used for mass killings, one of the chambers was used for human medical research as well as the murders of select prisoners. The Jewish Memorial and the Protestant Church of Reconciliation are also found in this area of the camp. The Catholic Church and Carmelite convent runs along the northern wall of the camp. The enclosure features vestments and other sacred artifacts secretly made by priests imprisoned in the camp. Over 3,000 clergy suffered in Dachau, including a Polish Cardinal. The Russian Orthodox Church memorializes over sixty thousand Russian POW’s executed at Dachau.

Although educational, the visit to Dachau is a sobering reminder that inhumanity can occur at any time and in any place. “Never Again” is carved into a stone monument in several languages, symbolic of the fact that genocide and dictatorship are not confined to one country or one people. For this reason,visitors to the Munich area should include a visit to Dachau.

From Munich: The S-Bahn (S2 Petershausen) stops at Dachau. Visitors can walk to the camp (45 minutes) or take a local bus.

Visits to Dachau are free and the camp is open ever day from 9-5. Dachau Concentration Camp is closed every Monday.

Individual visitors can book all inclusive guided tours from Munich starting at $28.00 US. Group Guided Tours in the camp for individuals traveling to the site on their own are $6.00 US.

Nov 6, 2008 2:20 PM

Guest :

The first visitors to Dachau, the townspeople, saw the bodies of the prisoners who had died in the typhus epidemic in the camp; they did not witness any "evils" but they were exposed to typhus since they were not vaccinated, nor sprayed with DDT, before their visit.

The Arbeit Macht Frei slogan is not found in ALL the camps, but only in the Class I camps where prisoners had a good chance of being released. Buchenwald was a Class II camp where prisoners were less likely to be released. Mauthausen was a Class III camp where prisoners had almost no chance of being released. These two camps did not have the Arbeit Macht Frei sign.

There were frequent epidemics of typhus in the camps, but no "frequent outbreaks of cholera."

The residential houses "within earshot" of the Dachau camp were built after 1990. At the time that the camp was in existence, the town had 13,000 residents; now it has 50,000 residents. The camp was not close to any houses when the prisoners were there.

The Dachau gas chamber was not proved at the Nuremberg IMT and it was not even mentioned at the proceedings of the American Military Tribunal at Dachau.

There were around 2792 priests at Dachau, not "over 3000."

The staff at Dachau was accused of executing 6,000 to 7,000 Russian POWs but this was not proved at the trial of the staff members by the American Military Tribunal held at Dachau. Only the execution of 92 Russian officers was proved at the American Military Tribunal.

Dachau was not a camp for "genocide." After 1939, it was a prison mainly for Resistance fighters from Poland, Belgium, France, Holland, etc. From 1933 to 1939, Dachau was a camp for political dissidents and persons who had broken the law, including Paragraph 175, the law that made homosexual acts illegal, and including gypsies who had broken the law that said that everyone had to have a permanent address. There were also "professional criminals" who were sent to Dachau so that they could work in the factories. By the time the Jews were sent to camps, starting in February 1942, they were sent to camps in the east, not to Dachau.