Stepping Into the Past
Allow me to take you back to last Saturday. On the 13th I went on another USO tour, my third one. This one was a "Third Reich Tour of Dachau & Munich." Tom has been in DC the last three weeks and has one more week to go so a co-worker came along on the tour, using Tom's seat.
The day started at 5:30 a.m. as we boarded the bus for a 2+ hours-long bus ride. We got caught in a couple traffic jams - 'staus' as they are called here - so it took a little longer to get up to our first stop - Dachau Concentration Camp.
Dachau was the Nazi's first concentration camp and served as a model for all the others. The people who ran the entire concentration-camp system during WWII were trained here. If I recall correctly it opened within 4 months of Hitler being elected to power. Originally it imprisoned dissidents and political prisoners, and was a torturous labor camp. It was for men only.
Dachau is the only camp that operated all 12 years of the Third Reich, opening in 1933. It was one of the last camps to be liberated in 1945.
The USO arranged a tour guide for us. His name is Jason and he spent the whole day with us. Here he is getting us oriented to Dachau.
This is a map inside the museum that shows the different camps the Nazis had set up all over Europe. The sheer number was astonishing.
At Dachau there was only one way in and one way out. This is the door that everyone walked through. "Arbeit Macht Frei" means work makes free. The camp was surrounded by electrified fencing that would kill a person upon contact.
In the picture below the large building houses the museum. A powerful video shows footage of the camp when it was liberated. The Allied Forces found more than 1,000 bodies that had yet to be cremated. People were starving and disease infected. I read in my tour guide that even after liberation many people stayed at the camp because they had no where else to go.
The smaller building to the right is where the iron entry gate is located. The big square area is where the prisoners had to report for roll call twice a week. Rain, shine, freezing cold, they would be out there standing at attention until everyone was accounted for. Visiting the camp during the winter makes it even more powerful. I was walking around in long-johns, a wool coat, gloves and scarf, and I was still cold. The prisoners here lived with no heat, thread-bare clothing and poor shelter and little food.
Across the square are two reconstructed barracks. Three rooms show how the living arrangements changed over time as the camp became more crowded. Here is what the beds looked like originally.
Years later they adjusted the design so that they could sleep more people.
Then finally the beds were just flat platforms, no longer resembling beds.
Here is a memorial sculpture at the camp. It depicts tangled bodies that are thin from starvation, positioned to look like barbed wire and blackened to signal the bodies put into the crematoriums.
This monument depicts the different patches people had to wear indicating if they were Jewish, gypsies, political prisoners, POWs, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, etc.
The crematorium was used to burn the bodies of prisoners who had died. Dachau was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz but tens of thousands of people did die there during its operation. Prisoners were also put through medical experiments.
After we got done at Dachau we drove into Munich. First stop was the Hofbrauhause where we had lunch. It's a three level restaurant and its the location of Hitler's first public speech.
We visited the corner where the Gestapo's headquarters was located.
We also visited the Fuhrerbau - Hitler's personal office building where the Munich Agreement was signed in 1938. His office was right above the entry way on the second floor. It is now used as a storage room.
This building was the Nazi art museum "das Haus der Kunst". All the Nazi architecture has a similar appearance.
To the left of this structure below is the site of the Beerhall Putsch; Hitler's 1923 violent attempt to take power. He became well-known after this incident. Our guide Jason told us that Germany could have chosen to deport Hitler since he was not German but they didn't. Jason also reminded us that Hitler was democratically elected into power in 1933. The Nazi party got more votes than any other party.
This is Munich's war memorial for WWI and WWII. It is underground, almost like a crypt. It is not a prominent memorial. The memorial reads the 'honorable' dead for WWI but only the dead for WWII.
The day started at 5:30 a.m. as we boarded the bus for a 2+ hours-long bus ride. We got caught in a couple traffic jams - 'staus' as they are called here - so it took a little longer to get up to our first stop - Dachau Concentration Camp.
Dachau was the Nazi's first concentration camp and served as a model for all the others. The people who ran the entire concentration-camp system during WWII were trained here. If I recall correctly it opened within 4 months of Hitler being elected to power. Originally it imprisoned dissidents and political prisoners, and was a torturous labor camp. It was for men only.
Dachau is the only camp that operated all 12 years of the Third Reich, opening in 1933. It was one of the last camps to be liberated in 1945.
The USO arranged a tour guide for us. His name is Jason and he spent the whole day with us. Here he is getting us oriented to Dachau.
This is a map inside the museum that shows the different camps the Nazis had set up all over Europe. The sheer number was astonishing.
At Dachau there was only one way in and one way out. This is the door that everyone walked through. "Arbeit Macht Frei" means work makes free. The camp was surrounded by electrified fencing that would kill a person upon contact.
In the picture below the large building houses the museum. A powerful video shows footage of the camp when it was liberated. The Allied Forces found more than 1,000 bodies that had yet to be cremated. People were starving and disease infected. I read in my tour guide that even after liberation many people stayed at the camp because they had no where else to go.
The smaller building to the right is where the iron entry gate is located. The big square area is where the prisoners had to report for roll call twice a week. Rain, shine, freezing cold, they would be out there standing at attention until everyone was accounted for. Visiting the camp during the winter makes it even more powerful. I was walking around in long-johns, a wool coat, gloves and scarf, and I was still cold. The prisoners here lived with no heat, thread-bare clothing and poor shelter and little food.
Across the square are two reconstructed barracks. Three rooms show how the living arrangements changed over time as the camp became more crowded. Here is what the beds looked like originally.
Years later they adjusted the design so that they could sleep more people.
Then finally the beds were just flat platforms, no longer resembling beds.
Here is a memorial sculpture at the camp. It depicts tangled bodies that are thin from starvation, positioned to look like barbed wire and blackened to signal the bodies put into the crematoriums.
This monument depicts the different patches people had to wear indicating if they were Jewish, gypsies, political prisoners, POWs, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, etc.
The crematorium was used to burn the bodies of prisoners who had died. Dachau was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz but tens of thousands of people did die there during its operation. Prisoners were also put through medical experiments.
After we got done at Dachau we drove into Munich. First stop was the Hofbrauhause where we had lunch. It's a three level restaurant and its the location of Hitler's first public speech.
We visited the corner where the Gestapo's headquarters was located.
We also visited the Fuhrerbau - Hitler's personal office building where the Munich Agreement was signed in 1938. His office was right above the entry way on the second floor. It is now used as a storage room.
This building was the Nazi art museum "das Haus der Kunst". All the Nazi architecture has a similar appearance.
To the left of this structure below is the site of the Beerhall Putsch; Hitler's 1923 violent attempt to take power. He became well-known after this incident. Our guide Jason told us that Germany could have chosen to deport Hitler since he was not German but they didn't. Jason also reminded us that Hitler was democratically elected into power in 1933. The Nazi party got more votes than any other party.
This is Munich's war memorial for WWI and WWII. It is underground, almost like a crypt. It is not a prominent memorial. The memorial reads the 'honorable' dead for WWI but only the dead for WWII.
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