Dachau.....do l need to explain this name!
Trip Start
Oct 18, 2006
1
16
93
Trip End
Oct 19, 2007
Dachau,
Germany
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The German poet Heinrich Heine... predicting the future of the Holocaust.
Taking the train from Munich to Dachau is a morning l will never forget. I have always wanted to visit a concentration camp, not because it is something l though l would enjoy but because it was an experience l wanted cemented in my mind and soul- the reality of what happened all those years ago. I have studied it at school, visited Holocaust museums in Melbourne, watched videos and read stories...but nothing had prepared me for that morning.
My two Canadian friends and l started off the day purchasing a group ticket which (travelling in Germany is always cheaper in a group) would take us from Munich Hauptbanhof to Dachau
01- The boy with our validated ticket Peterhausen!
. We quickly bought our ticket from the lady behind the counter and rushed onto the train. Unfortunately the lady had failed to tell us that we needed to validate the ticket in one of the yellow machines at the station before leaving, and as we had bought it over the counter and not through a machine we thought it was already validated. (Be warned: when travelling in Europe ALWAYS validate your ticket in the yellow machines!!!!). Soon a very large German ticket inspector asked for our ticket and l handed her our single ticket. She started yelling at us in German and before we knew what was happening she was ripping up our ticket. The boys and l just sat there, trying to talk to her but she didnt speak a word of English and was just yelling at us at the top of her lungs. We tried to get up but she motioned for us to get back down and said something about the Police and 50 Euro and walked off. We all just sat there stunned not knowing what to do. Ours was the next stop and we got up to leave the train. Unfortunately before we could get out she had run down the isle and started pushing us away from the doorway. We soon realised that she was not going to let us off this train! We sat down, having missed our stop and wondered what was going to happen. Nobody on the train spoke English (or was letting on that they did) and we sure didnt want to mess with the huge Ticket inspector who we nicknamed the Nazi. Twenty minutes later the train finally reached the next stop, and we decided to make a run for it. We all bolted out the train door and down the platform where behind us we heard her screaming at us
02- Entrance to Dachau concentration camp
. But it was too late, we were too fast and the train started to pull away. We were free from the Nazi!!! But we soon realised that we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, in Germany on a Sunday morning! We looked up at the platform name and discovered we were in Peterhausen which we affectionately nicknamed as Peters house. For all we knew perhaps Peter did live here as all the town seemed to only consist of the train station and a green roofed house....Peters house we guessed. We were stuck in Peterhausen trainstation for the next two hours...waiting for the next train back to Dachau. What a start to the morning! After about an hour of fidling with the ticket maching and getting the help of non-English speaking Germans who looked like they were wondering what on earth we were doing there, we finally managed to buy another ticket (which ended up meaning we made no saving on the trip at all) and made sure we validated it straight away in the little yellow box! Two hours later, we were on the train taking us to the place which leaves shivers up peoples spine when they hear the name....Dachau.The story of a horror we will never forget:
In May 1913 a man called Adolf Hitler arrived in the Bavarian capital Munich. He came from Vienna with all his belongings in a single suitcase
03- Quote for the prisoners path to freedom!
. In the following months he made his living selling self-painted postcards to tourists. After he had served as a volunteer in the German army during World War one from 1914-1918. He joined the German Workers Party, a small right wing group, in September 1919. A short time later he took over the leadership of the Party and the name was changed to The National Socilaist German Workers Party. After a violent failed attempt to seize power in November 1923, he finally became Chancellor of the German Reich in January 1933, and subsequently one of the most powerful dictators in history. The concentration camp:
Less than two months later, the concentration camp near Dachau was opened in March 1933. This turned out to be the beginning of a system that spread out into many other parts of Europe over the next 12 years; a system used by the Nazis through the tyrannical methods of the SS to torture and murder millions of innocent people. Dachau was the first and became the model for other camps. It was also the training centre for the SS, where recruits were indoctrinated into a system which encouraged the torture, humiliation and killing of prisoners. Every prisoner sent to Dachau was forced to give up his freedom, his rights and his human dignity.
I will never forget walking beside the shot gun towers, huge wall and entering the large, black wrought iron gates of Dachau concentration camp
04- Memorial
. As l spent the next two hours wandering around and learning about this camp l tried to put myself in the shoes of a 23 year old girl walking through those gates all those years ago.More than 200,000 people- Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals and others deemed undesirbale by the Third Reich- were sent here, more than 30,000 died at Dachau and countless others died after being transferred to death camps.
An English lanuage documentary is shown at 11.30am and 3.30pm, which l watched and felt literally almost sick by the end of it. It was definetly the most graphic video and images l have ever seen of the holocaust, and was mainly filmed by the US forces when the camp was liberated in 1945. I sat there totally amazed as the video explained that many of the local people at the time had no idea what was going inside the camps walls. The video then showed some local woman visiting the site of the crematorium during the liberation, and being sick when they saw a room pilled high of naked dead bodies.
Never in my life have l been so affected by a place as l was that morning. The whole site included camp relics, cells, barracks, cremtatoriams, gas chambers (which were used but not for mass murderings like at other concentration camps) a memorial and a very sobering museum which provided thought-provoking accounts of prisoners own experiences, from the setting up of the camp until their liberation by US forces in 1945
05- Holocaust art memorial statue
. Walking through the barrracks l imagined hundreds of people lying on the tiny wooden beds, and it was hard not to imagine the horrors of what took place in the crematorium and the gas chambers as they were all so vivdly described and with photos beside each explanation just to reinforce the horror. I cannot say that l was glad that l went to Dachau, but l believe it was something that l needed to do personally. It really opened my eyes to the power of humanity and what we as people can be capable of doing to each other.
More than 200,000 people- Jews, political prisoners, homosexuals and others deemed undesirbale by the Third Reich- were sent here, more than 30,000 died at Dachau and countless others died after being transferred to death camps.
An English lanuage documentary is shown at 11.30am and 3.30pm, which l watched and felt literally almost sick by the end of it. It was definetly the most graphic video and images l have ever seen of the holocaust, and was mainly filmed by the US forces when the camp was liberated in 1945. I sat there totally amazed as the video explained that many of the local people at the time had no idea what was going inside the camps walls
06- Nazi propoganda poster
. The video then showed some local woman visiting the site of the crematorium during the liberation, and being sick when they saw a room pilled high of naked dead bodies.Never in my life have l been so affected by a place as l was that morning. The whole site included camp relics, cells, barracks, cremtatoriams, gas chambers (which were used but not for mass murderings like at other concentration camps) a memorial and a very sobering museum which provided thought-provoking accounts of prisoners own experiences, from the setting up of the camp until their liberation by US forces in 1945. Walking through the barrracks l imagined hundreds of people lying on the tiny wooden beds, and it was hard not to imagine the horrors of what took place in the crematorium and the gas chambers as they were all so vivdly described and with photos beside each explanation just to reinforce the horror.
I cannot say that l was glad that l went to Dachau, but l believe it was something that l needed to do personally. It really opened my eyes to the power of humanity and what we as people can be capable of doing to each other. It was a sobering morning, with sobering and grey weather to suit the mood.
If you too would like to visit Dachau from Munich: To get there take the S2 to Dachau and then bus No 726 or 724 (Sunday and holdiays) to the camp. The entrance is free to the camp.
