Dachau Concentration Camp

July 6, 2019

Coming to Germany less than a month ago, we needed to prove a few things on this road trip

1) We needed to see if we could make the drive across country to Munich

2) Have Jared buy into the German experience by going to Dachau (Dak cow) Concentration Camp

Getting to Munich from Otterberg seems like a daunting task for us, mainly because we haven't driven long distances much as a family. The longest I've ever drove was from LA to San Diego, lol which isn't much. Don't laugh but driving from Otterberg to Munich is 4 hours which is similar to the drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

We left at 9am. Unfortunately there was a lot of traffic which led to the headache of driving. We thought about turning around, but in my head that would be failure. What should have been a 4 hour drive turned into a 6.5 hour drive! Ugh,shit. That was pain. What made our road trip take this long was that we got side tracked in a small town. Instead of moving a long and stopping at a rest stop, we went through this town looking for a restaurant to eat at and got lost. What ensued was going through a few other towns within the valley and unfortunately there was only one road in, so we had to backtrack through that same road which lost us one hour.

We finally got to Dachau at 3:30p. Michelle felt it wasn't worth it because Dachau closed at 5p, so we would only have 1.5 hours to spend there. However admission was free and we drove all this way, so we had no choice. Everyone was in a bad mood, when we started. The moods changed as we entered the premises and we were completely taken back by the situation. This is where it all started. Dachau was the prototype for all other Nazi Concentration Camps. You would think the prototype; maybe the layout, setting up the barracks, watch tower protection, labor methods, etc is what they developed here. But as you go through the rooms, you would not even believe what they developed here. The Nazi's developed unbelievable torture methods which would leave your jaws locked in shock.

One example at a display was this bull whip. The guards would make the prisoners strip naked and lie face down leaning on this platform area before getting to the shower. They would make the prisoners pronounce numbers in German??? If they pronounced it wrong they would get whipped. They would also humiliate them by calling them names if they didn't pronounce the words correctly, etc. Can you imagine, going through this before taking a shower? And then going into the shower with cold water in the winter after getting whipped. This story was so shocking that I couldn't even imagine. This was only one torture method, there were literally dozens of methods within these corridor of rooms. The rooms were bleak, dark, and just scary.

Some rooms were reconstructed like the living quarters. Some rooms had the original things like the cremation room. This room impacted me the most. There was this area with ovens. Above the ovens were post with ropes hanging from it. The Nazi's would heat up the ovens and hang prisoners from the post right above the ovens. Can you imagine how hot it was in there? And you are clinging on for dear life being hung from the top of the post? And then they would remove you and cremate you to get rid of the evidence. I also learned that many reports were falsely communicate to the media. When asked how much deaths were happening, the response "was not much"...that is because they cremated the bodies, so when officials came, they wouldn't see a load of dead bodies.

Dachau was a concentration camp built in 1933, it was mainly for Germans and Soviets who got arrested. It quickly became a place where no one wanted to go to. During World War II, the place was flooded with Jews, Czechs, Polish. This is when the extreme torture happened. The pictures within the exhibitions told it all. Dachau was open during the entire Nazi regime. After the place was liberated in 1945, U.S. soldiers took graphic pictures which are displayed in the exhibition area. I didn't take any pictures of the exhibition area just out of respect for dead. I did take some pictures of the items

We left Dachau and had a good talk about it on the long drive home. Michelle got us home in 4.5 hours, there was no traffic, but we experienced a bad rain storm. It was short lived, but felt like forever. Michelle did great driving through that. Before we went home, we bought groceries at Globus, our first time. I'll do an entry on Globus in the future. Globus is like a monster Sam's Club.

As the Germans say Tschüss!