Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial

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About 30 minutes outside of Munich, on my way home, was Dachau Concentration Camp so I decided to stop and visit. Parking was 3 Euros and entrance to the memorial site was free. I got there right as they were opening at 9am and was the first one there so it was quiet and pretty cold out since it was still early. Many of the buildings were torn down after the concentration camp was closed but they left several up, such as 2 barracks buildings where the prisoners were housed, the bunker, where the special prisoners were kept and where everyone was inprocessed, and the incinerator and the gas chamber "showers" still remain as well. They've reconstructed the beds that the prisoners slept in and I believe put new flooring in too. You can see just how many barracks there were because, while the buildings themselves are gone, the foundations remain. The information available was all in German and English so it made it very easy to go through the entire memorial site without a guide and without renting an audio guide.

For those of you who don't know, Dachau was the first Nazi concentration. According to my Lonely Planet Germany book:
"It 'processed' more than 200,000 prisoners, and 31,531 were reported killed here. In 1933 Munich had 10,000 Jews. Only 200 survived the war."

It was by far the saddest place I've ever visited.

(I'll post pictures as soon as Matt gets back from Italy with his camera).

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Photos

What's left of the railroad tracks
This is what's left of the railroad tracks that used to bring the prisoners to the camp.

The showers
Here are the showers (the real showers) used by the prisoners. The gas showers come later.

The beds
Here are the beds where the prisoners slept. These are actually recreations of the bunks but, as you'll see in the next picture, they're fairly accurate.

Many more buildings
They only left up one or two of the dorm buildings where the prisoners slept. The rest were torn down but their foundations remained. You can see just how many more there were.

The gas showers
Here are the gas showers. They didn't do any mass killings at Dachau like at Auschwitz but many individuals and small groups were gassed at Dachau.

The Incinerators
Here are the ovens where they burned the dead bodies of the prisoners, those gassed and those who died of starvation, disease, and abuse. Each oven held 3 bodies at a time, give or take.