Dachau

Prisoners walked this road from the rail station through the main camp gate.
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Dachau

Not the first place you think of when you travel, but Kylee told us she wanted to see the concentration camp outside of Munich so we made it a priority. After returning from the mountains we booked a hotel at the Munich airport to make things easier on the girls when they left early Monday morning. From there it was an easy taxi ride over to the town of Dachau Sunday morning. It was a beautiful day which gave the experience a surreal quality.

Dachau was the first camp and initially created to hold "enemies" of the Third Reich: Communists, Social Democrats. But it wasn’t long before it included a more diverse group including Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, dissenting clergy – anyone critical of the government. When the Americans found the camp there were 32,000 prisoners crammed into 20 barracks designed to hold 250 each. It’s estimated that more than 200,000 prisoners went through Dachau from 1933 through 1945. Either they died at Dachau or they went onto to other camps. Dachau was a work camp, not an extermination camp. Prisoners were loaned out to Germany business, mostly in the armaments industry. Others were used for medical experiments such as hyperthermia and air pressure.

"Work will set you free" - the camp motto
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Today the camp is a memorial to those who suffered and died. And, of course, a reminder to the rest of us. The four of us spent a couple hours here, walking through the remaining buildings and visiting the religious memorials. We did very little talking, there just wasn’t much to say.

Getting back to Munich, REB went to the hotel and the girls and I did a little sightseeing. That night we had a wonderful dinner at the hotel. Jodi and Kylee were off for home the next day. We had such a great time with them that the week whizzed by. Needless to say, REB and I are pretty tired and look forward to slowing our pace for a few days.

The roll call grounds. Each day, twice a day, prisoners were lined up and counted. Even the dead were dragged out and placed in line.
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With our love - more later,

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