Remembering Dachau

Today's site visit consisted of us visiting the small town of Dachau, which also is home to the first concentration camp built during World War II. My topic for my research paper was Dachau Concentration Camp from 1939 to 1945. Prior to the visit, I knew a little background history about the camp itself along with the treatment of the prisoners. For our trip to Germany, this was one of the visits I was most looking forward to, not because I did my research paper on it, but because I've had a general interest in World War II and the Holocaust since I was middle school.

Even though a lot of things stuck out to me during our visit at Dachau. The main points that stuck with me throughout the visit was the brutality that was taken against the prisoners along with the treatment of women. We were able to see the barracks where they showed the progression from the housing options from the beginning and prior to 1939 all the way to the libration, where the camp started from around 3,000 prisoners to over 60,000. This influx of prisoners brought less food rations to go around along with an increase of diseases among the prisoners. The prisoners also had to deal with punishments for their actions that included flogging, hanging, death, etc. There were even testimonies that stated that prisoners would go as long as four days without consuming at food. One thing that stood out to me that I didn't know when I was conducting my research about Dachau was about the treatment of women. I found that Dachau was mainly a concentration camp for males, and didn't have any women up until the late 1944s. The women at Dachau were treated equally to men and received similar punishments. Women who came in to the camp pregnant were forced to receive abortions, up until the beginning of 1945 where they would let some of the women come to full term.

Overall, going and seeing the Dachau concentration camp memorial was an experience that I will remember.