life is beautiful
I dun know alot about Hitler, his regime or political point of view. Killing is not my favorite subject and torturing is definitely not my thing. The nearest thing that I ever come across about concentration camp is the movie- life is beautiful.
Being able to visit a real thing in Munich had definitely opened my eyes .
welcome to
Dachau concentration camp.
The first concentration camp under Hitler regime.
It was on our last day in Germany, cold and gloomy and grey.. We followed the tour guide, took the underground from the city, took us about 30 minutes reached the nearest town n then we took the bus to the memorial site. According to the guide, those prisoners was transport to the camp the same way, but they have to walked from town instead of a 15 minutes bus ride.
The site was smaller than I thought it would be, everything seems monotones and colourless inside, and give u an eerie feeling n it chilled right in to your heart. I dun remember anyone actually talked loud or laugh out loud through out the tour.. ofcos there is nothing merry to laugh about anyway.
Later I learned that Dachau camp was a working camp, they worked the prisoner here till skin and bone, exploited all their basic rights and energy, use them on medical experiment . Drove them till there was nothing left, then they were shipped to other big extermination camp... 
In this very hall way, they were force to strip down n shaved n disinfected, all their belongings was taken away, even their names.. then they will be given a number, n a uniform that come with different badges, to tell your prisoner status.. eg the red triangle is those who have done wrong, if you got the yellow star probably means you are jews, if you got that red big dot on you means they can shot you anytime if you show any sign of "trying to escape. " If you got all the tags on you, well, all the best, you might not last long..
Dachau was the first concentration camp in Germany, it was opened the day before Hitler was elected as the leader of the country. I always got this impression that they only locked jews away, but seems they can locked anyone away, the communists, those who was not supporting the government. Even those who were suspected as homosexual!!
And then they were worked day and night, and they were punished for silly reasons- too short, too tall, wearing glasses, laugh too loud etc..
Not only they were whipped, they were also locked up in a dark room, for weeks and months, maybe the dark room prisoner was slightly luckier than the standing room prisoners, those who forced to stand in a small room that is not tall enough for them to stand straight and not big enough for them sit down. they have to stay in those half squat positions for days.
Then there was a reconstructed barracks, small room that was fit for maybe 7- 800 people was filled with 2-3000 people at one time..lots of them was suffocated and died during their sleep.
Till now no one knows the exact number of dead in the camp, lots of them was not documented and recorded.
And when they cant handle with that many dead bodies, they built a crematorium.
The very first crematorium.
Then they built the Barrack X, which have a gas chamber and few more ovens. they told the prisoner is time for shower, then lead them to this room that looks like there are lots of shower heads at the top, but instead they filled the room with gas through pipe and poisoned them. after that they dragged them to the next room and pile them up, wait to be cremated .
Also it was said that they hang the prisoner directly in front of the oven and then cremated them straight away.
It was a rather distressing tour, especially when you were standing in the chamber and let your imagination ran wild...But it was only my imagination, we will never be able to understand how those who died felt or what was in their mind when they were standing at that very spot...
It started raining at the end of the tour.. we quickly took our last few snap shots and walk back to the main hall...
We were then shown a short video clip about the liberation of the camp by the american..
Then We rushed back to the station to catch the train backed to city...later that night backed to london..
Two days in Munich was mostly about Hitler and THIRD REICH..up till now I still dun know a lot about all these histories. BUT may be the only thing that I have learned and absorbed from our tour guide was- We must learned from histories!!! By knowing the gruesome part of the histories, accepted that it had happened before and learned from it is the only way we wont do it again!!!
What a great lesson of life.
For those who can not open up the link, a poem to share..
When the Nazis arrested the Communists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews,
I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.
Der Weg ins Freie, Martin Niemöller (F.M. Hellbach, Stuttgart, 1946)
translated by Bob Berkovit
