Dachau Concentration Camp

In the late 1930s and 1940s, the world rumbled from the explosions of the Second World War. Adolf Hitler, Der Fuher of Germany, was a fascist leader who reigned with terror. One of his fear tactics was the creation of concentration camps. These camps were created to eliminate those whom Hitler saw as a threat. The first death camp established was the camp of Dachau, whose creation was purposed to strike fear in the hearts of those who defied Der Fuher. Dachau was created in March of 1933, and was the first prison camp to be opened. It was located in the town of Dachau, which is in the Southern part of Germany, near Munich (“Dachau Concentration Camp”). It was built on the grounds of what used to be a munitions factory (USHMM). The first inhabitants

Life in Dachau was a bleak one. The prisoners slept on wooden boards furnished with a straw mattress and possibly a blanket (Bernard 12-13). They were fed an insufficient amount of food. Along with the poor conditions in the camp, prisoners were treated to cruel punishments and torture (Byers 23). During the day, the prisoners became forced laborers. Task they were burdened with included construction projects, road building, working in gravel pits, and draining marches. When the war began, labor camps became vital to the production of armaments for the German military. Later, Germany became desperate for weapons, so smaller sub camps were built around Dachau to increase production. Thirty satellite camps were built, holding over thirty thousand prisoners

The American forces arrived to find barracks full of thirty thousand starving prisoners and more than thirty train cars filled with decaying bodies. Soon after, the Jews sent on the Death March were also liberated (“Dachau Concentration Camp”). From 1933 to 1945, over 188,000 political prisoners or undesirables were imprisoned in Dachau. “It is unlikely that the total number of victims who died in Dachau will ever be known” (“Dachau Concentration Camp”). The Dachau Memorial was opened in the 1965 to commemorate those who lost their lives within those barbed wire fences (Laqueur 417). The memorial reads, “May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945, because they resisted Nazism, help to unite the living for the defense of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow