To honor the dead, we must warn the living

In order to get to Dachau, we had to take a train and then a bus to the actual camp. On the way there, I tried to mentally prepare myself for what was in store, seeing a concentration camp for the first time in person. Upon arrival at the camp, before we even went in the gates, our guide, Lisa, gave us a brief history of events leading up to the Holocaust and then some information about concentration camps. Lisa told us that concentration camps or work camps were nothing new to the world they just became abundant before and during World War II. There had previously been camps during the Boer War and in various countries such as Cuba, the Philippines, and the United States; there are even modern day camps such as Guantanamo Bay.

Dachau Concentration Camp, opened on March 22, 1933, was one of the first camps established by Hitler's totalitarian Third Reich. It began as a camp for men, though that changed throughout the years, and it was also a camp where many high-ranking political enemies of the Nazi government were held. When the first prisoners were brought to the camp it was not finished so they had to assist in building the camp in which they would most likely die. Dachau was the 'model camp' and other camps such as Sachenhausen and Buchenwald followed in its footsteps.

The first thing that we saw were the abandoned train tracks and the SS army garrison and training center before we even entered the camp. This building and the area around it are now being used for some sort of police defensive training, which is very controversial, Lisa told us, because sometimes gun shots will be heard just outside of the place where thousands were murdered. It seems disrespectful and just very odd that someone would even think that it was okay to use a building outside of a concentration camp for something that would incite memories of the events of the Holocaust. Just outside the gates, there were only about 10 yards of train tracks left that were just barely recognizable since they were also starting to get covered by grass and gravel. The platform on one side has started to deteriorate, adding to the somberness of the camp and also serving as a reminder that we must remember this history even as these places start to fade into the past. This span of history is recent enough and formative enough that it will never be forgotten, but I think it would be very interesting to go back in forty years or so and see how it may have changed, or it is has changed at all.

We turned to the gate to enter into the actual camp. The gatehouse is one of the few buildings in the camp that is the original and not a reconstructed building. The gate with the infamous words Arbeit Macht Frei "work brings freedom" actually seemed very picturesque yet intimidating at the same time. It seemed like a gate entrance to a country club or maybe a gated neighborhood, yet I knew what it was the entrance to. I was still trying to prepare myself and I almost felt a sense of dread as we approached the gate which went away once we entered. I was constantly trying to imagine what the people that were brought to the camp were thinking and feeling, but I do not think my thoughts could even come close to the terror and uncertainty they may have felt. The writing on the gate was meant for the prisoners to think that if they worked, they would be made free. This was not the case at all, there was no intention of freeing any of the interned; labor in fact brought a lot of torment to them becasue they did not have proper nutrition or adequate sleep. Lisa told us later that in fact, many opted to try to be a worker within the camp because they were actually given tasks. If inmates did not have a job they ran a high risk of being beaten and tortured by the soldiers because they were left to spend they days in the yard. The horrible treatment of the prisoners was permitted because of Hitler's totalitarian regime. The Third Reich had so much power taken from the government and the people that if anyone tried to stand up to it, he or she was either taken prisoner and put into a concentration camp or killed on the spot.

I think the first thing I noticed as we entered the gate was not the actual camp itself, but the people in it and their interactions. There were many who were jovial and chatting away with each other about things other than the camp. I do not know why I was shocked by this, I expected everyone to be quiet and somber walking around the camp and taking everything in, but this was not the case at all even as we continued on our tour throughout our time there.Once I looked past all the people walking around, I was able to see the camp and my first thought was that it looked so barren and cold. The roll call area and the whole camp were also a lot larger than I expected it to be. From everything that I have learned, the camps were overcrowded, especially in the later years, so I guess I expected the camps to have been smaller. I think if the camp had been filled with people it may have seemed a lot smaller, but because it was so desolate it seemed very expansive.

We stopped just insie the entrance under the shade of some trees as Lisa told us more about the camp and the inmates. She also pointed out parts of the town that could be seen from where we were standing. There were houses right on the other side of the wall of the camp. It was slightly unsettling that people could live right next to this place where such abhorrent things happened just 65 years ago. This camp is almost literally in the backyard of some of these houses. I cannot imagine waking up every morning having to see the roofs of the main house or the bunkhouse and being reminded of the Holocaust and those that died in such merciless ways.
We then headed into the bunkhouse, which, along with the bunks inside, were not the originals. There were only two barracks left staning, the others had been torn down because maintaining them would have been very costly. There were three different stages of bunks; the first were bunk beds where inmates had their own bed with sheets the second were communal bunks that were separated by a plank of wood and the third were communal bunks with no separation. This is one indication of the dehumanization of the prisoners. We also saw the toilets and wash stations, which were all communal and further demonstrated the bestial treatment of the people in this camp. In Dachau, as in other camps, medical experiments were performed on the prisoners. Doctors performed many experiments including, but not limited to, high-altitude experiments using decompression chambers, tested new medications on prisoners, malaria and tuberculosis and hypothermia experiments. These experiments, if they did not kill the prisoner, permanently crippled them.

As we walked in the direction of the crematoria we crossed a bridge that went over a trench and prevented the interned from escaping. Even if they happened to get across the ditch, they would either have trouble getting over the barbed wired fence or they would be shot. This area was calle no man's land and was probably the most dangerous place in the whole camp. The bridge also went over a small river which was, for lack of a better word, picturesque. The whole area surrounding both the old and new crematoria was very beautiful with lots of greenery. I cannot reconcile the beauty surrounding this place where awful things happened, it seems unnatural for the land to be bursting with life.

The crematorium was by far the most sobering place in the whole camp. As I walked through the disinfecting chambers I stood there for a second and had a very eerie feeling. The ceiling was very short and the room was rather small and I could not imagine what it would have been like if the doors had been closed. Standing in the gas chambers, I had a similar experience. I tried to imagine the fear that the inmates would have felt standing in the room, looking up at the shower heads, waiting to see if water was going to come out of them or if they were about to die. Then seeing the crematory itself was very unnerving. The ovens were very small and I coul not imagine one human being putting another human being in that oven knowingly and willingly.

Our tour was ended with the crematory and walking back through the camp to leave, I felt I had not spent enough time to fully feel the camp. I was very shocked to see some girls picking up rocks from the ground to take them home. I cannot think why someone would want a piece of this place. I found it to be disrespectful to the memory of the dead and to the visitors who have yet to come.

Visiting this camp has stirred up many uneasy feelings within me. I was not as deeply saddened as I expected to be, but I was more made uncomfortable by what I was seeing. I still cannot quite comprehend how people were able to carry out Hitler's orders, despite how persuasive he was an how in need of a leader the people were. I wonder if it was more driven by fear of being considered a traitor than anything else. Hitler's totalitarian regime ruled successfully for many years, but he was no match for the American army when they decided to do something about the camp.

Dachau Concentration Camp was liberated April 29, 1945, by the 42nd Rainbow Division, the 20th Armored Division and the 45th Thunderbird Infantry Division of the US 7th Army. Built to house only 5,000 prisoners, when the liberators arrived, they foun 30,000 prisoners crowded into the camp. The camp was rampant with diseases which killed hundreds of people shortly after they were liberated. Hundreds more died after they were liberated because they were fed food that was too rich for their emaciated bodies to handle. During the 12 years it served as a camp, it held over 200,000 prisoners over 32,000 of whom died in the camp. There is memorial statue just outside the crematorium that is the unknown inmate and has an engraving reading, "den toten zur ehr den lebenden zur mahnung" to honor the dead, we must warn the living. These were the powerful words that we were left to contemplate as we left Dachau Concentration Camp.

For more information about Dachau this is a really great site: http://www.scrapbookpages.com/dachauscrapbook/index.html

Running just to catch myself

It's nearly freezing outside. It is about as cold as it's going to get in the beginning of a north Texas winter. It snowed for about an hour which is close to a miracle in this area.

I'm restless. Heartbroken. Tired of everything.

I change into my running clothes. Leggings, long socks, my old Nike shorts and a white long-sleeved t-shirt. I slip on my shoes and a headband to cover my ears and keep my short hair out of my face. I put my ear buds in my ears and start my workout jam. I usually walk for a little bit just to get myself going, but today it's too cold for my to just walk, so I immediately start jogging. Nothing too fast but just right and I feel great about it, though it almost seems to make it more cold because I'm creating a little wind. I immediately regret wearing my white shirt as my nipples stick straight out, but if I go back inside to change, I won't want to come back out, so I just suck it up. I don't want to think or deal with anything right now. I just want to run. Far away. I must keep running because it's so cold. If I stop, my muscles will tense up and get cold and I won't be able to make it home. So I just run. My fingers are freezing; my nose is starting to run; I can't feel my toes. I feel nothing but the cold around me and it feels great. I know I can't stop so I just keep going and focus on the cold I feel. I can't decide if my toes are frozen or not, I can't feel them and I'm just hoping they will still keep working so I don't fall over. I am ususally a wimp and when I get tired, I just stop. But today is different. I know I must not stop because if I do it will be twice as cold and I may not make it home. Somehow that is all I need. But I'm not quite sure I really care to make it back home. I've gone farther and logner than I have in a long time and I'm feeling great. I want it to last forever.

I want to be in this moment forever, where I can't feel any emotions but just my body. The movement of my legs and the feeling of my feet hitting the ground, with each motion, nothing else seems to matter. It all melts away and I am just running, starting to put myself back together with every step I take. Every breath reaches down to my toes. I can feel every muscle that contracts with every move I make. Gradually, I start to get a little warmer, but the cold still penetrates to the bone. But I don't care because at this moment, I can feel nothing but the cold which is a refreshing relief from the constant emotional anguish I have felt for the last month. I am in this place, a world of my own, where the sun is starting to shine through again.

The cold numbs my mind so I am just my body and my movements right now. My breathing has soothed my broken heart, at least for a while. Everything looks as it should on a freezing cold day, slightly lifeless but teeming with anticipation of what is yet to come. In spite of the lifelessness and eerie calm surrounding me, I see beauty everywhere, and I feel as if I am the only one in the world. I see no one on my run. No cars drive by me. I don't think I am that crazy, but no one else has ventured a step outside their cozy houses. It is as if the world was consipiring to let me have it solely to myself for that hour. As if the world knows my needs better than I do.

The time has gone too quickly, and before I know it I am headed up the hil around the corner from my house. I cerish that hill and the change in breathing it gives me, making me feel even more alive. I come round the corner and have this sense of accomplishment. I feel like part of me was put back together in that hour, but expertly sutured so that the scar will be minimal unlike my other scars that are blatantly obvious. At the same time, I dread opening the front door and walking in to face the world again. I would love to keep running. I am still not strong enough. But I must do it anyway, so I open the door.

Entering the Holocaust

Thinking about the Holocaust is not something I do on a regular basis, but since I am currently taking a class entitled Hitler and the Holocaust, it is probably something that I will be thinking about regularly at least for the next 17 weeks. It is something the events of which should not be forgotten under any circumstances. I have been interested in learning more about the Holocaust and reading literature about survivors of the holocaust since grade school, particularly since reading The Diary of Anne Frank. Nothing I have ever learned has led me a step closer to understanding why such an atrocious even happened and was allowed to continue happening for years, or even why similar events happened in the past and continue to happen today. I do not understand the mindset of hatred, whether racial or otherwise. I cannot comprehend the extent to how much evil there is in this world. And I cannot even guess as to what would provoke someone so much that they feel the need to single out and kill millions of individuals simply because they are different. Studying the holocaust will no doubt be enlightening and saddening at the same time. I do not study it in an attempt to understand why the mass murder of innocent people happened. If I come to fully understand the reasoning wouldn't that make me no better than those that committed the actions? Studying something this awful will prove to be difficult emotionally and mentally, but I believe that studying it is key to resolving present conflict and preventing future acts of this nature.

Schmlogging

I created this blog before Christmas, as finals were approaching, thinking it would be something that would help me to get things off my mind and just be an outlet for the writing that I don't do, but thought I wanted to start doing. I'm not one to let people into my life and my thoughts really quickly, and blogging is doing just that. Even just by saying that I am revealing myself. I guess I could look at this as a learning experience and hopefully I will really learn something and it will be reflected in my life. But a blog is no replacement for real interaction, so as for how much learning will be done is still to be determined, especially because when I get to writing or typing I begin to ramble as I am doing now, which I definitely do not do when I am talking.
As it turns out, I don't really want to do any writing. I mean, it's a good idea and everything, but honestly, I don't want to be a blogger, but here I am blogging away. I guess it is a good way to share my experiences and whatnot, something I can look back on and see where I have come from, stuff like that. So I guess I will give this a shot. Read on if you wish, or not, no toes will be stepped on.