Dachau

In 1944 Raphael Lemkin originated the term "genocide" in response to the horrors of the holocaust. He defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group". Everyone who knows the history of Europe is familiar with the holocaust. Many know that over 6 million Jews were killed in the holocaust, and over 12 million people all together if you include the minority groups. Those are monumental numbers indeed, but I think that it is hard to understand or comprehend the magnitude of such death in our world today. The majority of our generation has no direct connection to World War II and the horrors of the holocaust. As our generation moves forward, memories become shrouded in modernity, and reverence can turn to apathy. Being in Germany, however, has brought history to my doorstep, because this is a country that remembers the painful events of the past century well. Few Germans sing the national anthem or hoist their flag, because they have witnessed the evil ramifications of a political power. The concentration camps are museums of the thousands that fell under wicked governmental ideologies. One of the most sobering experiences of this trip was the opportunity to visit one of these concentration camps at Dachau. 


The concentration camp at Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp built in 1933. It was originally used for political prisoners of the Third Reich. As Hitler and the Nazi party gained power in Germany, prisoners were sent to this camp to help sustain the governments military efforts. As you walk through the door of the prison, the door reads "Arbeit Macht Frei", which means "work makes one free". Prisoners were forced to work under the impression that if they were obedient, they would obtain their freedom. 

Although much of the camp was burned after the war ended, much of the place has been preserved for people to come and witness. Walking through these gates was absolutely surreal. It was so hard to imagine that thousands came through this place on the way to their death. 

This was the large courtyard where the prisoners would line up and take role for hours at a time. 

The camp was huge, housing thousands of prisoners at a time.

The barracks have been rebuilt to simulate what life would have been like for the prisoners. The camps were incredibly messy and the prisoners were packed into these rooms like animals.

Sickness was a major source of death in the camps, as the living conditions were harsh and unsanitary.

The camp was heavily militarized and surrounded by tall fences to enclose the prisoners.

The Nazi ideology was built off the supposed supremacy of a particular race. Hitler believed that the Arian race was genetically superior, and he aimed to eradicate all those who were poisonous to his pure race. Jews as well as minority groups were forced into these camps as prisoners, and they would perform manual labor that support the Third Reich. Prisoners built roads, assembled weapons, and various other duties with little food or nutrition. As soon as the prisoners were either too sick or too weak to work, they were killed and replaced with the next prisoner. This was a vile ideology that degraded the value of the human life at the expense of the mob. This was one of the gas chambers used in the camp. It is hard to imagine hundreds of prisoners being paraded into this room, believing that they were taking showers. 

This gas chamber was located next to a crematorium, where human lives were senselessly eradicated.  To the Germans they were faceless casualties of war. The camp was a machine of death, built for fueling an ideology of world domination.

This wall was where prisoners were executed. You could walk up and feel dents where bullets struck. 

Now there are a number of memorials dedicated to the thousands lost in the holocaust.

This was probably one of the most difficult things to process on our trip. Just the sheer number of lives that were lost in this place is astounding. It seems impossible to comprehend that each of these thousands were real people like you and I. What were their stories? Who were their families? What pain, what torture did they endure at the expense of this evil empire? How can such reckless evil claim so many? It is at the foot of graves like this that I have asked myself some of these same questions. These are not movies; these aren't fictional characters. History is as real as it gets, and it shows us what ideas are capable of. We gasp at the horrors of the holocaust, and yet millions of lives are heartlessly aborted in America today. It is places like Dachau that shock us, but that remind us that we are not as far away from Nazism as we might think. We are quick to base the value of human life off of a manmade moral code, and its manifestation rears itself through our history. God forgive our dark wanderings from the light of your ways. 

While this place is a memorial of pain and death, it also a place of redemption. The German people live in the shadow of the terrors of Nazi ideas, and they are the ones who understand brutality. While there is shame, there is great unity for change here. This sign is at the center of the camp. 

"May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933-1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men."