While In Germany (Concentration Camp)
They write it as Dachao and pronounce it as Dakhao. It is in fact a city on the outskirts of Munchen City of Germany. My point of interest today was the Hitler's Concentration Camp located at Dachao/Dakhao. The place really turned out to be an awe inspiring piece of recent human history for me. Wandering in the sprawling complex along with my wife guided by our son, I could actually hear the groans and cries of thousands of Jews being starved or rather tortured to death by the gun-totting SS men acting as part of the Hitler's war machine. There they were, watched by the triger happy guards who were always too anxious to shoot at any prisoner who may step on the forbidden grass belt inside the fencing system which consisted of a moat, electrified barbed lines, a lane with hunting dogs and ofcourse the outer wall dotted by seven observation towers. The only fault of these prisoners was that they happened to be Jews. Why Hitler killed them in thousands, I fail to understand.
The history is that these Jews were herded away from their homes and hearths and mercilessly transported to the Concentration Camps like the one at Dakhao and tortured to death in the name of forced labour. Once inside the camp through the only entrance called 'Jourhaus' there was no escape for them except death which came in many forms like hunger, fatigue from work, beating, hanging, disease, cold and what not. The prisoners were housed in this camp in two rows of barracks under appaling conditions. Every barrach was divided into socalled Stuben comprising of a day room and dormitory. And designed to accommodate 200 humans, each barrack was catastrophically overcrowded with upto 2000 prisoners.
'The Bunker' was the central site of terror within the Concentration Camp. Punishment (Whipping, Pole Hanging) and executions were conducted in the courtyard. Then there was 'Roll Call Area' where the prisoners were forced to line up mornings and evenings to be counted and often had to stand motionless for several hours. If a prisoner was missing, such as after an escape attempt, this torture could be drawn out for many hours. Furthermore, a 'Special barrack' was set up in the camp in which female prisoners from Ravensbrück concentration camp were forced into prostitution.
Other things remaining the same, the most dreaded part of the camp was Crematorium where the executions and murder operations were carried out and dead bodies were burnt non-stop. It is also on record here that in the last weeks before the liberation of the camp the dead could no longer be cremated due to lack of coal. As such some 7500 dead had to be burried in mass graves at the Leitenberg close by and the 1230 dead from the Dakhao Concentration Camp were burried at the Wald Cemetery of the city of Dakhao.
The last word. On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration Camp for Political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a 'School of violence' for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve years of its existance over 200,000 persons from all over Europe were imprisoned here and in the numerous subsidisry camps. More than 43,000 of them died. And on April 29, 1945, American troops liberated the survivors.
PS--- At the nearby Hebertshausen is another dreaded monument though small. It is the 'SS Shooting Range' where more than 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were executed in the year 1941.
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The history is that these Jews were herded away from their homes and hearths and mercilessly transported to the Concentration Camps like the one at Dakhao and tortured to death in the name of forced labour. Once inside the camp through the only entrance called 'Jourhaus' there was no escape for them except death which came in many forms like hunger, fatigue from work, beating, hanging, disease, cold and what not. The prisoners were housed in this camp in two rows of barracks under appaling conditions. Every barrach was divided into socalled Stuben comprising of a day room and dormitory. And designed to accommodate 200 humans, each barrack was catastrophically overcrowded with upto 2000 prisoners.
'The Bunker' was the central site of terror within the Concentration Camp. Punishment (Whipping, Pole Hanging) and executions were conducted in the courtyard. Then there was 'Roll Call Area' where the prisoners were forced to line up mornings and evenings to be counted and often had to stand motionless for several hours. If a prisoner was missing, such as after an escape attempt, this torture could be drawn out for many hours. Furthermore, a 'Special barrack' was set up in the camp in which female prisoners from Ravensbrück concentration camp were forced into prostitution.
Other things remaining the same, the most dreaded part of the camp was Crematorium where the executions and murder operations were carried out and dead bodies were burnt non-stop. It is also on record here that in the last weeks before the liberation of the camp the dead could no longer be cremated due to lack of coal. As such some 7500 dead had to be burried in mass graves at the Leitenberg close by and the 1230 dead from the Dakhao Concentration Camp were burried at the Wald Cemetery of the city of Dakhao.
The last word. On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Adolf Hitler had been appointed Reich Chancellor, a concentration Camp for Political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a 'School of violence' for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve years of its existance over 200,000 persons from all over Europe were imprisoned here and in the numerous subsidisry camps. More than 43,000 of them died. And on April 29, 1945, American troops liberated the survivors.
PS--- At the nearby Hebertshausen is another dreaded monument though small. It is the 'SS Shooting Range' where more than 4,000 Soviet prisoners of war were executed in the year 1941.
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