i suppose i should mention - for anyone that doesn't know - 'arbeit macht frie' was the message the nazis promoted to camp prisoners. it means 'work will make you free' which today, with the knowledge of what happened, is downright chilling.
i think that it is interesting to compare dachau to camps like auschwitz. as devestating as dachau was, the truth of the matter was that it was primarily a work camp. while there were certainly people killed (hanged, cremated) there in the later stages of hitlers control, the majority of them died from overexertian. however, auschwitz et alt were built later and served solely as extermination camps. the dynamics are phenomenal, though, who would have thought i would be saying that any one 'death camp' is worse than the next?
yeah this was actually the second time i've been to dachau. i went 14 years earlier when i was 9 and that was actually my introduction to the holocaust, i had no knowledge of it before stepping onto the concentration camp grounds. the crazy thing is, the place just felt heavy, like i could just feel that something had gone down here. and then as the explanation unfolded, the heavyness began to make sense.
i went back because the most vivid images were those showing concentration camps during the winter months. i couldn't imagine how anyone could have survived it. so i wanted to go back and see what it was like, in frigid conditions. and it was certainly miserable. totally freezing. i dont know how anyone lived through it.
