For a brief history of the Holocaust, click on the word.

The  HOLOCAUST

To always remember, a teacher visits Dachau:   I had never really planned to visit Germany, but when my son was stationed there, I did not hesitate to go.  The German people have been so kind and generous to him, and here was an opportunity to thank them in person.  This summer, I visited my son before his deployment to Iraq, and while there, decided that I wanted to see a concentration camp. Why? To understand  how the Adolf Hitlers and Saddam Husseins in the world are able to commit the atrocities they do.  The German friends I have made were hurt that I would want to see the abscess of German history that has scarred every generation since World War II.  I told them I thought it was important to remember in order to protect future generations, and  I let them know that I am aware of my own country's inhumanities in history. The treatment of the  American Indian, the enslaved negro, and  the imprisonment of Japanese citizens are incidences that shame Americans to this day. . As a teacher, I want to share what I have learned in an effort to create future generations who will always look back as they look ahead and say.....                            Never again.

The prisoners at Dachau started with political prisoners of the regime. this group included communists, social democrats, trade unions and some members of both the conservative and the liberal parties. Later prisoners from the following groups of individuals were added: Jews Homosexuals Gypsies Jehovah Witnesses Clergymen The largest ethnic group in the prison were the Polish followed by the prisoners from the Soviet Union.  There were more than 200,000 prisoners at Dachau from more than 30 countries.

Barbed wire, perimeters of electric fencing, and armed guards keeping a watchful eye kept the prisoners at bey.  In a weakened state from hunger and exhaustion, many committed suicide by jumping onto the wires.

The rows of barracks as they appeared during the Holocaust, and the view today where the barracks have been leveled out of respect for those who died. Only one barracks remains as a reminder of the torturous existence of the prisoners here.

Entering through this gate, most were unaware of what lay ahead.  The ironwork on the gate states in German " Work will set  you free".

Work they would, sometimes 18 hours a day digging tunnels, foundations, mining, and building railroads.  Many were guinea pigs in experiments on the effects of altitude and freezing temperatures on the body.  Subsidiary camps of Dachau, Kaufering and Muhldorf were underground factories which produced armaments, airplanes and rockets.   Over 30,000 prisoners worked as slave labor in the armament camps.

They stood between these barracks for hours as roll call was taken despite the rain and the freezing cold.

As disease, starvation, exhaustion, as well as the cruelty of the guards took its toll, the bodies were cremated here.

There were 30,000 registered deaths at Dachau.  Additionally, thousands were murdered and left unrecorded but the piles of bodies and ashes speaks of their misfortune. A gas chamber was built at Dachau,but never implemented.  The original crematorium had only a single oven, and a new one with four ovens was built with the gas chamber to handle the increasing numbers of bodies.

This sculpture inside the original gate to Dachau, represents the anguish of those held here from 1938 until liberation on April 29th 1945.  On April 27th 7,000 prisoners left the camp on a death march to the Swiss Alps to the south.  On April 28th, the SS soldiers abandoned the camp in an attempt to escape capture by the American troops.   At the time of the liberation, there were at total of 67,000 prisoners at Dachau and its subsidiary camps.

Prisoners wore striped uniforms with caps and clogs.   Each uniform was coded with a patch representing the "crime" against the regime.  Often the supervisors of the prisoners were criminals who had been serving prison time in Germany.   The captured  were forced to give up all of their personal effects.  Housed in barracks, they were forced to sleep 7-10 in a bunk, without a mattress or pillow, sometimes with straw.  The close proximity lead to the spread of diptheria, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases.  They were covered with lice and boils from filth since the only washing facilities were these fountains which sprayed ice cold water all year round.   In workrooms, they repaired shoes for the German militia, extracted fillings to recover the metal from cadavers, and made clothing for the camps as well as the German troops.  Women were held in brothels for German soldiers, the children and elderly were executed since they could not work.

To learn about the individual who perpetuated these crimes against humanity, click on the picture at left.

For a brief history of the Holocaust, click on the word.

This page was last updated on: August 29, 2003

This site is dedicated to the men and women currently serving in Iraq, and to the men and women of BBtry, 1st artillery, 1/33 currently waiting for deployment from Bamberg, Germany to Iraq.  May you all return to your families safe and sound, and thank you for serving our great nation.