A German concentration camp: an American’s perspective

By Kelly Enright

Most American students study the Holocaust beginning in middle school. We are shown pictures and videos along with reading stories about the terror of the Nazi regime. In my German classes throughout high school and college, it was mentioned in more detail, but you can never fully understand the Holocaust because we haven’t experienced it. Well today, I came one step closer to learning about the true horrors of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

The Dachau concentration camp, about an hour’s trip from Munich, was the first concentration camp set up for political prisoners and later served as a model for all subsequent camps. Once the bus drops you off near the entrance, you take a short walk to the main entrance (Jourhaus), which boasts “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “work brings freedom.” This seems a bit ironic, considering there was absolutely NO freedom in the camps. But anyways, once inside the camp there are many places to go, none of which I was prepared for. Of course we toured the museum and saw a film, both of which were pretty similar to what I learned in school. After we did that, the broadcast students went off on their own to take some footage and try to get interviews from some Germans on their feelings about being at Dachau. (We later found out the Germans weren’t so willing to be interviewed, only a few fellow Americans).

The rest of us began our self-guided walking tour of the rest of the camp. First we entered a barrack. As we entered, there was wood bunked three-beds high, just as in the infamous pictures everyone has seen. But there they were, right in front of us. Even though the bunks had been rebuilt, it made everything seem so real. I tried to imagine the amount of people that were crammed into the beds, and think about what it may have been like. But considering I can’t even share a bed with my sister, I can’t really understand what the people must have experienced. The smell had to be awful; there were people laying over people, sometimes even dead ones. I thought about how uncomfortable I get if I’m not sleeping in my own bed, with my “memory foam” pad, and I felt that I, nor anyone, has the right to complain about such luxuries. Past the first barrack, there were the ruins from the other barracks, all lined up in two rows. Farther on, behind some trees, I experienced the part I really couldn’t have prepared myself for.

A long, white building, surrounded by trees was built beyond a stream. The Crematorium. And this hasn’t been rebuilt, everything in it is original. Including the four furnaces, used to burn tens of thousands of bodies. The actual ovens were only feet in front of me. They had these two poles attached by metal that would be pulled out, and they laid the bodies on them, and just pushed them in the oven. I could not believe it. The room was so small, and the ovens were so intimidating. At this point I started to feel nauseous. Just thinking about the atrocities that were carried out on the prisoners, and then their bodies were throw into a room in piles, and burned 24/7. I have never experienced the smell of a burned body, but I almost felt like it was still surrounding me.

Further on, we entered a gas chamber. Although it was never put into operation, I still felt like I was an innocent person entering the chamber ready for a shower. This is how the prisoners were tricked into it. They were told they were going to have a shower, and stripped their clothes in a room next to it. Then they were let into the chamber, equipped with fake showerheads to make it more convincing. However, instead of turning on the water, they turned on the gas. There were grates on the floors, walls and ceilings, along with holes where the “showerheads” would have been. The ceiling was very low -- probably about 7 feet high. Now talk about feeling like I’m suffocating. I walked in there and just looked around, thinking about how panicked the people must have been as the gas started to creep in. They knew they were going to die, and that they had just been completely deceived. I tried to think about their last few thoughts -- whether they would try to escape, or accept their fate.

Although I was at a famous concentration camp, I felt no desire to take pictures. I just knew the pictures I took would do no justice to what the prisoners experienced, and I cannot imagine being like, “Hey mom, look at this gas chamber.” The grounds were very well kept, and the camp itself has been renovated to help visitors see what it really was like.

One thing I learned that I never would have known is that after the camp was liberated, the local townspeople were forced to enter the camp and see all the dead bodies piled up, along with the crematorium. This may seem odd or even gross, but the idea was that we wanted as many people to witness what had happened, in order to prevent people from saying it didn’t happen. We wanted witnesses to the horrific mass murder by the Nazis, so we could start to prevent it from ever happening again.

I know this post has been long and has a lot of information, but I really feel that my experience today was extremely important. I am much more informed about the Holocaust, and also feel that I will do more to ensure nothing like this ever happens again to innocent people. This experience is part of what I will remember for the rest of my life. I would have never had this opportunity in the States, and although it was depressing, people need to see the horrors of the past in order to make the future better.

[Note: Look out for photos and video from our visit to come.]