Dachau Concentration Camp, Pt. 1

My heart was heavy. I was walking up to the gate, my mind racing thinking of how many people walked through this gate. How many families were torn apart, how many represented here, how much pain and suffering, how many tears, how much fear, how much hatred. I walked through the gate, entering a part of history, a world of darkness and evil.

                                                              “Work will set you free”
It was hot.  We sat down on a small piece of green grass shaded by a few trees, a pleasure that no prisoner was allowed to experience.

Instead, prisoners were required to stand in formation, lining up on gravel in the middle of camp.

If this ground could talk, what would it say? Would it speak of the tears it absorbed? Perhaps the tremors from legs holding on to the last measure of strength. What would it remember most? The sound of feet, the sense of loss and tragedy when a man was murdered, having to absorb the impact of his fallen body, or maybe, it is the day of liberation. A day when the injustice was broken, sounds of jubilation, the realization that tomorrow will be a brand new kind of day.

Some prisoners were held in solitary confinement cells. This included some priests, politicians, and other “important” prisoners. Some rooms had heat, however, if it was ever used, the heat would be turned on during the summer.

SS prisoners had a wing dedicated to housing them.

My heart breaks. A sweet mother, holding her precious baby could never imagine this kind of future. It is inconceivable to find this kind of evil.

Block 28 held priests. Living in block 28 meant you were one of the last to get food and you walked in the rain, snow, and heat longer than most. The farther away from the center of camp, the less you were thought of. Flowers are always resting here and you will find people kneeling lifting up prayer. Jehovah Witness prisoners worked extra, considering it God’s Will that they were there.

Beds in the dormitory during the first part of the war

During the middle

And at the end