Dachau Concentration Camp - Munich

Since I was a young boy I was fascinated by this part of German history.  A very sad, dark chapter in their history and world history.  In my mind, to ignore that these things happened is not respecting the innocent lives that were taken.  What a sobering place, a quiet reverence permeates the whole site.

The site that exists today is mostly the tightly stacked series of buildings on the right and the U shaped building below with the walls and machine gun towers on the perimeter.

Prisoners were told that they were worthless when they arrived and would be treated as such.

The entrance below is what over 200,000 prisoners saw when they arrived at the camp.

This is the big lie seen on the gate when prisoners first arrived. The German words shown on the gate read in English, "WORK SETS YOU FREE"   Most of the prisoners were used in forced labor camps, working to make ammunition for the war or various products that were sold to raise needed cash. There is no evidence that this promise was ever kept.

The building on the right side is a reconstruction of what the barracks for prisoners looked like.

All the dots shown on this map represent other concentration camps scattered
throughout Europe modeled after the first one, Dachau.

Some Nazi propaganda of the time period.

These camps were sub-camps to Dachau, making goods or ammunition in forced, slave labor.

This is the original gate from Dachau.

These memorials took my breath away and choked me up.  I too pray, "Never Again."

The picture shown above is from Allied reconnaissance planes when the camp was liberated by U.S. Forces in April of 1945.  It shows the barracks of which all you can see now is the cement foundations in the picture below. 

Prisoners were packed into these bunks, often two or three to a bunk.

The cement foundations are where barracks once stood.

The picture below is of the formerly electrified fence, to the right is a river.  Not many escaped from this camp.

Words can't adequately describe my emotions while at Dachau.  Man's inhumanity to man in history is so sad.  What gives me hope is that there is a loving God in Heaven whose son paid the price for our sins.  He made possible the resurrection and all of these people who died innocently are with God now and at peace.  Never to feel the pain of mortality again.  I firmly believe this truth, and it gives me hope.