My first day in Munich was the most interesting, upsetting, and educational experience that I have ever come across. Never did I think all three of those emotions would all tie into one event. This tour was made from the history of those who suffered and died at the Dachau Concentration Camp. This memorial site was opened by Hitler in March of 1933 http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/index-e.html . This camp led to torturing and murdering of millions of innocent lives.
After reading books about concentration camps http://remember.org/books/campsbk.html , I thought that I needed to experience a concentration camp during my time in Europe. I went to visit Dachau because even though it was the first concentration camp in history, I thought I had to experience and listen to the stories for myself. At times during the tour, Marcin, my tour guide, would share stories that made me feel sick to my stomach. It amazed me how the Nazi’s had so much power and had so much hatred for people. The tactics they used to torture and kill were so strategic. Everything at Dachau had a purpose. It ranged from the writing on the walls and doors to having the bed sheets line up perfectly. The prisoners of Dachau experienced physical and psychological pain. Through the stories told, I felt bad complaining that my feet hurt from the gravel or that my back was hurting from standing too long.
The entrance into the camp was a gate that had writing on it. On the gate was written work will set you free. This is ironic because no matter how hard one worked at the camp, they would never be free. The harder you worked, the more tired and ill you became, therefore leading to a slow and painful death. This gate represents a define border of territoriality because the Nazi’s were controlling the people no matter how hard they worked. Little did the prisoners know that they would never be set free and that they were trapped.
Everything that Marcin told the group was very degrading to the prisoners. The Nazi took away their names and gave them a number. They were stripped of their identity and would no longer be called their name. Written on the walls was no smoking. The Nazi’s weren’t worried about people smoking; the purpose was to remind the prisoners that even if they wanted to smoke, they couldn’t because they had no control in anything they did. One example that I found was the worst was that above each bed was a little shelf for the prisoners to put some things on. Since the Nazi’s took everything the prisoners had on them, there was nothing to put on any of the shelves. An empty shelf was a reminder that they had nothing and that they were nothing. Listening to the tour guides talk about how the Nazi’s manipulated the prisoners amazed me. The Nazi’s would tell the prisoners that they would be going to take a shower without knowing the fact that the shower was actually the gas chamber. To think that this was going on in the world is very disturbing. Everything had a purpose to torture the prisoners at that concentration camp. Many died and the ones that made it out alive do not like to talk about what went on during that historical period.
After learning about concentration camps all throughout high school and some in college, I had a completely different experience visiting the site and having people share stories with me. I highly recommend everyone who has the opportunity to visit a concentration camp at one point in their life to take up on the opportunity because you will take away more than you would think.
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