Dachau

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A church bell struck 12 noon. A soft breeze fluttered the leaves of the Poplar trees. The sun was bright and the sky was blue in a small German town today. Jack and I went to Dachau to the memorial of the first Nazi concentration camp. It was surreal. Experiencing both the beauty of the day and the horror of the atrocities that had occurred. There are still homes just next to the camp grounds. The murder of multitudes occurred just under the noses of the citizens of the Reich. Normal people that made coffee in the morning, biked to work, and gardened just next door to a camp of murder. In the book, "In The Garden of Beasts", a German investigator for the President of Germany Hindenburg stated he felt the Dachau camp was humane to those imprisoned for supposed political crimes against the Reich. When, in fact, the cruelty of the Nazis was unspeakable. 43,000 people died at the Dachau camp.

It was humbling to walk in the paths of those imprisoned at Dachau. Today, Jewish and Christian memorials stand next to each other inside the walls of the camp in Dachau as a reminder of the faith of those who were imprisoned because of their beliefs. What prayers did they say to keep hope during the persecution? What kept them from losing hope? The surviving prisoners never lost hope. A secret faction of prisoners prevented the Nazis from destroying the camp in 1945 and secretly communicated with the Americans troops who liberated the camp.

Hope. Never lose it. And as for the terror, a marker at the camp says "Never again".

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Photos

Iron Gate Into Dachau Camp
translation of the words is "Work Sets You Free"

Memorial
"never again"

Line Of Poplars
Line of trees where the camp barracks once stood.