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Dachau Concentration Camp
Memorial Site
KZ-Gedenkstätte
From:
Munich, Germany
ABOVE: The infamous "Work sets you free"
slogan on the wrought-iron gates at the Dachau camp entrance.
by Durant Imboden
 Dachau
was Nazi Germany's first concentration camp, and during its 12 years as a prison
and armaments factory, it housed some 200,000 prisoners.
Today, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site (which opened
in 1965) is visited by at least 800,000 people each year--mostly Germans, and
especially German students, who typically visit at least one former
concentration camp during the upper grades of high school.
About the camp:
 The
Dachau KZ, or Konzentrationslager, was a model for later camps, including
more than 150 subsidiary camps in the region. It began as a prison for German
political enemies of the Reich, but over time it became a processing center and
forced-labor camp for Jews, Sinti, Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses,
prisoners of war from Eastern Europe, and other groups. After 1942, Dachau was
also used for SS medical experiments. (It was never a mass-extermination camp,
although an estimated 43,000 prisoners died from starvation, illness, or
execution before the U.S. Army liberated the camp in 1945.)
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site is well worth
visiting, although it can inspire discomfort: not merely for Germans ("What did
your grandfather do in the war?"), but also for American tourists who may find
themselves thinking of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and "enhanced interrogation
techniques" such as waterboarding as they tour the camp and its torture cells.
Visitor information:
The Concentration Camp Memorial Site is in the Munich suburb of
Dachau, about 20 minutes from the Hauptbahnhof (Munich's main railroad station)
by S-Bahn train. At the Dachau railroad station, you can transfer to a bus for
the five-minute ride to the camp. See page 2,
How to get there, for illustrated
step-by-step directions by public transportation.
Visiting hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday and
on all public holidays. Admission is free.
The camp offers audioguides and 30-minute or 2½-hour
walking ours, or you can book an escorted coach tour from Munich through
Viator and other companies. (You can just as easily explore the camp on your
own, preferably after spending an hour or two in the
Exhibition or museum, which tells the camp's
grim history through displays, a movie, and other exhibits). For more
visitor information, see the Dachau Web links on page
8 of this article.
Next page:
How to get there
Top photo copyright © Steven Phraner.
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