Wanderlust Livin' Cami: Dachau Concentration Camp

We are all familiar with what happened during WWII, sickening part of history that no one hopes repeats itself.

Map of all the concentration camps throughout Europe during 1933-1945

I have always been interested in WWII history, not because what happened is fascinating its haunting, but just it is so interesting that one man could convince thousands, that what he was doing was for the good of his people, and how the rest of the world sat there for so long and did nothing.

Gates into Dachau reading 'work will set you free'

Walking up to the gates of Dachau you could feel the ominous history and the overall eerie feeling that swept over you, I wasn't sure what to expect, what I was going to see but nothing could have prepared me. The place was cold, damp, as if I were seeing things in only black and white, and it reeked of death. I walked through the gates and my eyes started to water, a cold, chilling, numbness came over my body, and there I was in the middle of the first Nazi concentration camp built in 1933, shortly after Hitler became chancellor of Germany. Dachau was the first and the model 'political prisoner' camp which it later became a death camp and where over an estimated 188,000 men spent the remainder of their lives or saw their death.

Where 33 prisoner barracks formally stood

'Prisoner Road' where roll call was conducted

There are many stories you can read at this camp, written by prisoners themselves, and they are all bone chilling. The one that resonates with me the most is the story of roll call. Guards did role call of all the prisoners 3 times a day. If they their numbers didn't match from the previous roll call, they made them stand there again while they counted again, and again until they got the number right. If someone happened to die in the night, the men had to drag the corpse out for roll call, until the body could be stacked and taken to the crematorium. It isn't the roll call that bothered me, it was that I was in Dachau at the tail end of winter, and it 37 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was bundled up with layers, a coat, scarf, and gloves, and freezing my buns off. These men at the very most had a top, pants, and basic shoes, and the material resembled that of a potato sack. In their diary's they talk about having to wait a staggering 13 hours in the dead of winter, snowing, and very windy while the guards did roll call 7 times, and men were dropping all around them, and there they had to stand degraded and humiliated.

Dachau Prison, as if life behind these gates wasn't already a living hell

Hallway of Prison Cells

I learned and studied about WWII in school, visited the Holocaust museum, and the Jewish cemetery in Prague but nothing, and I mean nothing even compares to experiencing first hand. When I visit Europe again, I plan on visiting Auschwitz where they housed the women and children, and where the movie 'Boy in the striped Pajamas' (a must see) was filmed, and modeled after. My heart aches for the men, women, and children during that time, and the horror they had to live through, if they lived. It is something none of us can ever fully grasp, or imagine. It makes me think twice about getting mad when my iPhone battery goes dead, or I miss a connection, because I will never experience anything as crucial as what these men did.