Typically, when I write about my travels it usually involves a visit to a local library or bookstore. I’m going to break tradition and discuss my trip to Munich, Germany this summer. More specifically my visit to Dachau, a former Nazi concentration camp and now memorial site honoring the lives lost, honoring the suffering endured by survivors, and continuing education so others may learn to prevent such tragedies. 

I planned typical tourist attractions such as visiting castles (Neuschwanstein), churches (Frauenkirche), and historical sites such as the Beer Museum and Marienplatz. I even crossed off a bucket list item, visiting the surfers at the Eisbachwelle. I signed up for several tours, but not the Third Reich Walking Tour. I figured Munich is full of history and many stories and anecdotes would find their place on other walking tours – and they did. 

As part of the Beer Tour, we visited the Hofbräuhaus. In February 1920, Hitler gave a speech outlining the manifesto or political philosophy of the Nazi Party. “The Hofbräuhaus is also where Hitler publicly denounced the Jewish people and gave the infamous “Why We are Antisemites” speech.” Another walking tour took us to Viscardigasse, an alley with bronze cobblestones that serves as a memorial to those who resisted Nazi tyranny. And most of the tours I took began just a block or two from the House of Justice where members of the White Rose movement were sentenced. 

With so much ongoing vitriol and rhetoric experienced daily in the US, I felt it was imperative that I visit the Dachau memorial site.

Our tour group arrived at Dachau after a short, one stop train ride from Munich Hauptbahnhof. We then boarded a public bus that took us from the Dachau train station to the entrance of the memorial site; former inmates were required to walk this distance. 

I knew I wasn’t jiving with our guide before we arrived. She appeared unconcerned with members of our group who had physical difficulties (boot, cane). ‘If I lose you, it’s only one stop, just get off the train.’ And the solo traveler, teacher, and mom in me didn’t appreciate the ‘Is everyone here? Tell me if someone from your group is missing.’ What??? I’m a solo traveler, no one is going to miss me. Seriously, just count heads. As with many tour companies in Munich, the guides now living in Germany hail from all over – ours was from Spain.

Well, when we entered the site and she began her spiel the hairs on my body rose immediately, a sense of dread enveloped me and not just because we were in a hallowed location steeped in death and degradation. Our guide accurately described Dachau as a work camp, not an extermination camp whose purpose was solely the extermination of human lives. So, this camp “wasn’t so bad.” Just in case we were confused or thought we might have heard her incorrectly she repeated this phrase numerous times. It ‘wasn’t so bad.”

Yes, perhaps it was ‘better’ than being murdered straight off the train. However, no human being should ever be forced to brutality experience life like this. It’s called war crimes for a reason.

We arrived at the crematorium – which was needed because of the numerous deaths due to hunger, exhaustion, and disease, the direct result of being tortured, or were brutally murdered in the Dachau concentration camp. Work did not set everyone free. According to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Scholars believe that at least 40,000 prisoners died there.”

Next to the crematorium was a gas chamber shower area. Though, according to our guide, it was never used. The guide again thought this was a good thing. Yes, it’s here but it wasn’t used. Excuse me but the intention was there. Why build it otherwise? It’s not likely to get a spread in Architectural Digest magazine. No. It was installed for a purpose. It was designed for killing. This was the mindset of the people running the camp and the country. According to the Dachau Memorial website, “Killing people on a mass scale through poison gas never took place in the Dachau concentration camp. It remains unexplained as to why the SS never used the operational gas chamber for this purpose. According to one contemporary witness account, some prisoners were killed by poison gas in 1944.” but also says the following just a paragraph away on the same page, “In the spring of 1942, work began on building “barrack X”, which was then put into operation a year later. This was a crematorium with four furnaces, a disinfection chamber for clothing, dayrooms and sanitary facilities, as well as morgues and a gas chamber disguised as a “shower bath”. There can be no doubt that “barrack X” was designed for the mass extermination of prisoners.” This seems contradictory. Regardless, no one needs to build a gas chamber. Period.

This was our last stop together at the camp before we went off to explore on our own. I was grateful to get away from our tour leader and wondered why I didn’t ditch the group sooner. I guess I was too shocked and surprised by the experience. Do you ever feel that way? This experience has made me more self-aware that I need to do more when I encounter situations like this. Let’s just say, by the time we got back to Munich our guide didn’t like me much. I had numerous conversations with my fellow group participants relaying my concerns over choice of words used and the general depictions used. Many of us were listening in on the other tours going on rather than our own.

This less than concerned, lackadaisical approach to history left me feeling exhausted and scared for our global future. History repeats itself if we don’t take it seriously and if we fail to heed the warning signs. In the last fifteen minutes of my morning spent at Dachau, I left feeling a bit more hopeful. That’s because on the way out I passed a small group quietly praying and subsequently broke out in quiet song. Hatikvah (The Hope), was their song of choice. Hearing those words was the balm I needed to soothe my soul.

Do not forget. Vergiss nicht.