Travel to Dachau concentration camp / memorial site
You will have your own personal private guide in Dachau Memorial grounds
Please click here to visit John's Bavarian Tours, then you will see the many other tours which are offered.
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Visit the Dachau Memorial Site
on the grounds of the former concentration camp (work camp with large number murders committed).
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Each person who visits this place of history will depart with a different impression.
It is my wish that this be a learning experience for each of my guests who I have the privilege to accompany through the stone cover grounds of the former Concentration Camp Dachau.
Here was a former World War I gunpowder factory / munitions factory; as Hitler needed workers for his factory he decided to make this into a work camp.
In March of 1933 Dachau officially opened for political prisoners. The idea was to begin a model camp for the so called SS to practice and use experimental techniques.
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It is said that in 12 years time over 200,000 people from all walks of life in Europe had been imprisoned here. That more than 43,000 found a terrible end, inside the walls of this so called work camp.
Fact remains that when the American troops arrived April 29, 1945, the SS were already packed up and gone. Most of the important prisoners had already been sent on the so called death march. Prisoners who remained were mostly very weak and ill.
Dachau as a memorial site was begun on the grounds of the concentration camp Dachau in 1965. This was a cooperation between the survivors (Comite Internation de Dachau and the Bavarian state).
A new photo exhibition was then formed in the large horse shoe shaped building. This was refered to as the "Path of the Prisoners".
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Poem:
Als die Nazis die Kommunisten holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Kommunist.
Als sie die Sozialdemokraten einsperrten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Sozialdemokrat.
Als sie die Gewerkschafter holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Gewerkschafter.
Als sie die Juden holten,
habe ich geschwiegen; ich war ja kein Jude.
Als sie mich holten, gab es keinen mehr, der protestieren konnte.
-- Der Weg ins Freie, Martin Niemäller (F.M. Hellbach, Stuttgart, 1946)
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When the Nazis arrested the Communists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.
-- translated by Bob Berkovitz
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Here is a short back ground concerning the early days.
On March 7, 1933 Germany was in an emergency situation, Article 48 of the German Constitution had already been invoked. Under this new law, Heinrich Himmler was named the Chief of Police in Munich, his real job was Reichsführer of the SS, making him the leader of Hitler's private army.
As Police Chief, Himmler announced the opening of a concentration camp of Dachau. There were already other camps and prisons in Germany where Communists were being held without the trial, but Dachau camp was the first to be called a concentration camp. Also it was the first camp to use SS soldiers as guards; the other camps used SA soldiers as guards.
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