A Beacon of Hope: The Evolution of Religion in Dachau 1933-Present

On Friday, five others and I attended a Dachau tour. Munich is the place that hosted the rise of the Third Reich and was home to some of the political party’s first policies (http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/timeline/nazirise.htm). But all of that aside, the thing that I took away from this city was seeing religion and culture transforming during Nazi times especially at Dachau. Before you enter the camp, the first thing your see is the gate that reads, “Arbeit Macht Frei”. This literally means work shall set you free. Upon entering, I witnessed a massive area where the Nazi Party held enemies of the state against their will. Contained in this concentration camp were jews, communists, criminals, gays, gypsies, and any other “threat”. To give you an idea the scale of size, the tour took three hours. From this, I saw two instances of religion and Bavarian culture evolving from 1933 until now, inside Dachau.

The first is the obvious and most detrimental to a nation of people. The Jews were literally wiped from West and Central Europe. I walked into a replica of a barrack from the 1933-1945 area. There was not much there. Slabs of wood stacked three high acting as beds, were home to 4,500 detainees. I witnessed the living conditions and can only imagine the struggle that existed. The barrack was maybe 100 yards long and initially, it was to only hold 400 people. But nearing 1945 and the end of the war, people were given no comforts. When I was standing in the room with the beds looking out the window, I saw the guard tower standing there protecting the outer limits. Also near the guard tower, there is an electric fence and moat that surrounds the entire premises. It was very depressing to think that Jews, and others, had lost their sovereignty, rights, and freedoms. These barriers imposed by the state, reflect the social practices during that time. This was the Post WWI era and there was poverty and political upheaval. It shows the behavior, actions, and ideologies of the government and some Germans. Mixing all of this, the culture, environment, and ideologies, the Third Reich was able to blame these people as being an enemy and taking actions that had personal and real consequences. Even more disturbing was entering the gas chambers and crematorium at the back of the camp. This was a systematic process. A person that was about to die would enter an area to be decontaminated; then the prisoner would enter a shower where poison would be released; lastly the person would be carried to the next room where three ovens waited to cremate them. It was hard for me to take and had to walk out.

The second transformation of Religion at Dachau was very surprising to me and brought hope to mankind. Out of ugliness, people came back together. At the back of the camp behind all of the barrack foundations there were three memorials erected. The three structures are a Catholic church, a Protestant church, and a Jewish Synagogue (http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/memorial/station12.html). On the tour we made the stop after exiting the quarter mile row of poplar trees. Front and center is the Catholic Church. The building is in the design of a half silo with rocks covering the outside wall. Within the open space, there is a large gold cross with a piece of art that looks like thorns. This could be seen as a crown of thorns worn by Jesus or barbed wire that surrounded the camp. Our tour guide told us that mass is still held here a few times a year. The synagogue was located to the right and was smaller and was 6 ft underground. It was indiscrete and was meant for people to walk down to reflect on the camp, with a small amount of sunshine entering from the roof. And lastly the Protestant church was a very modern figure absent of right angles. They did not want to associate any with the Nazi swastika that was all right angles. Religion had returned to the camp and has succeeded over the evil that happened in the past.

This trip was a sobering experience. It was not what I expected to feel on such a nice day in such a great city. It was here that an unknown amount of prisoners died, but it is thought to be over 25,000 (http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Dachauscrapbook/deathstatistics.html). I feel pain for the people that suffered there. The Nazi guards stole these people’s dignity. It should be witnessed by all and before visiting, check out the virtual tour (http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/memorial/tour.html). But the main point is that there is hope for mankind. This event was only 70 years ago, but people were able to forget and learn from the past. Religion is a symbol and should be seen as a beacon of hope.