Dachau - Starting Your Visit
From:
Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
Entering the camp
As you leave the bus stop, you'll pass a small building where you can buy
books, rent an audioguide, sign up for a guided tour, or use the WCs. (More
toilets are in the Exhibition building within the camp.)
 In the not-too-distant
future--perhaps by the time y ou read this article, which was written in 2008--this prefab building will be replaced by a modern visitor center
and café.
Near the KZ entrance,
you'll see a bronze plaque that commemorates the liberation of the camp by the
U.S. Army's 20th Armored Division on April 29, 1945.
 The
only entrance to the concentration camp is through the Jourhaus, or
guardhouse, where you'll see the motto "Arbeit macht frei" on the wrought-iron
gate beneath the archway.
As you enter the camp through the Jourhaus, you'll notice the former maintenance building (right) that housed the camp's kitchen,
clothing department, workshops, and baths. The roll-call area, where prisoners
were counted each morning and evening, was in front of the maintenance building.
Most of the camp's dilapidated buildings were torn down before
1965, when the Concentration Camp Memorial Site was opened, but you can get an
overview of what the World War II camp and its neighboring SS facilities looked
like in this model from the Exhibition (see
next page).
The concentration camp is at the top of the photo, where you can
see the two rows of barracks blocks to the left of the roll-call area.
The foundations of the old barracks remain, and beyond them are
three memorials: the Catholic Mortal Agony of Christ Chapel (built in 1960), the
Carmelite Holy Blood Convent (1064), the Jewish Memorial (1967) and the
Protestant Church of Reconciliation (1967). A fourth memorial, the Russian
Orthodox Chapel, was built outside the walls, near the crematorium, in 1995.
Next page:
Exhibition (museum)
"Arbeit macht frei" photo copyright © Steven
Phraner.
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