Arbeit Macht Frei

The words on the gate promise that work makes you free. But for over 30,000 registered prisoners who walked through, and an unknown number who were not registered, the only "freedom" they would ever see would be death.

I hadn't planned on visiting Dachau, thinking that such an experience would likely be too disturbing and just wouldn't fit into a relaxing vacation in the Alps. I was right. But as my vacation in southern Bavaria unfolded, I became aware of just how much the ghost of Hitler still haunts that land. And while some would prefer that all of the evidence be destroyed, there are many historical sites relating to the Nazis that have been preserved. I was amazed at the crowds of people who came to see the concentration camp. Especially the young people. It seemed as though every high school in Munich had chosen that day for a field trip.

Dachu was established in 1933 and was the first of hundreds of concentration camps. Initially, political opponents, Catholics, and Jewish leaders were imprisoned. But eventually, the list included Protestant religious leaders, doctors, lawyers, bankers, intellectuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, and those who were deemed mentally ill.  It was not classified as an extermination camp in the mold of Auschwitz or Treblinka.  Still, thousands lost their freedom, their families, their livelihood, their possessions, their identity, their dignity, their health, and their very lives there.