Non-French TidbitsDachau Concentration Camp

By Jim and Emmy Humberd

When we first arrived in the town of Dachau, a few miles northwest of Munich, we stopped for gasoline, and found the attendant spoke English. He said he was in the Germany Army, far away from Dachau during the war, but he did not believe all the stories he was told, and we have heard, about the Dachau concentration camp. He said most of the prisoners were lawbreakers and when the US Army arrived, they let everyone out, including murderers and other dangerous people.

We were not convinced. While some prisoners may have been criminals, the original story was confirmed when we talked to a former prisoner, and visited the extensive displays that told a more complete story.

The Dachau concentration camp must be seen, but is a place a person cannot stand to see. We saw the crematory, the gas chamber (they said this one was never used) and the place where they hanged people. They have preserved two of the barracks buildings and the foundations of the rest. A very impressive manner to display the camp.

At Dachau concentration camp's headquarters building, now serving as a museum, thousands of photographs, posters, and pages from newspapers and magazines, displayed the rise and fall of the Third Reich with a wallop no amount of history books, TV documentaries, or professorial dissertations could match.

They had built a Protestant church in a very modern design. The minister we met at the church was a prisoner here during the war. The other day, he and a visitor recognized each other. Each thought the other had died in the prison, years ago.

When we visited Dachau a few years later, they had completed an additional church and a synagogue as memorials for the clergy who had died in Dachau's concentration camp.

Thirty-eight thousand people were killed, or died of starvation and disease. We visited in the two remaining barracks, and saw how they lived and died. So sad.

A sign at the entrance of the Dachau concentration camp says "Gedenkenstatte," which we believe translates to something like, "A place to remember, a place to think about."

Related Links:
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
Dachau Scrapbook

Books by Jim and Emmy Humberd:
Invitation to France
Invitation to Germany
Invitation to Italy

French Video Immersion