Dachau

Hard to know what to say in this post. Can't really sum up a trip to Dachau in a few paragraphs or with a few photos.

What I can say I guess, is that by being there, in the cold, on the same grounds that thousands of Jews and other oppressed people were starved, beaten, tortured and often murdered, I experienced feelings of sadness and rage.

The museum at Dachau, the former concentration camp that saw more than 60,000 prisoners between 1933 and 1945, walks you through a year by year account of German and world history from 1919 through 1945, beginning with the Germans' defeat in WWI, through political unrest ultimately evolvling into a highly nationalistic state, to the imprisonment of Jews and others in various concentration camps throughout Europe.

Dachau served as a model for all other concentration camps, and its name is synonymous with torture and cruelty.

Only being there in person, looking at the evil countenances in the photos of the Nazi commanders, the sallow faces of the prisoners, listening to the audio accounts of survivors, looking at the propaganda posted on the walls, walking through the cells used for medical examinations, lashings and other unspeakable crimes against humanity, could I begin to get an inkling of just how awful it was, and how horrible a time in human history.

Over 20 million people have visited Dachau. For me, it was an experience that I will never forget.