WARNING: Photos may be inappropriate for young children.
I've admittedly struggled to put this experience into words, so my blog entries have fallen behind. A long bus ride today means I finally have a moment to process the visit.
At 22, I was hired as an 8th grade reading teacher. The position was newly created, and there really wasn't a set curriculum except that I was to focus on tolerance of other cultures. I had 120 students for 12 weeks in an elective rotation. (I had 360 students as a first year teacher!) One book, Until We Meet Again by Michael Korenblit and Kathleen Janger, was the only required text. Mike is the son of two Polish survivors, and he wrote the story of their experiences. Meyer and Manya Korenblit immigrated to the US and settled in Ponca City after the war.
Since that first year of teaching now 16 years ago, I have changed grade levels and teaching assignments multiple times, but units about the Holocaust abound in middle school curriculum. In an age group that struggles with identity and acceptance among their peers, books about World War II, and the Holocaust in particular, have always resonated with them. They question how this happened, and why certain groups were persecuted just for being different. They worry that it could happen again.
It was important for me to see this place I had taught about for so many years. But, it was hard. I knew it would be. When I visited Germany in 2011, we had the opportunity to visit the camp then, but it would have been our last day. We couldn't end our trip on that note. At least this visit was coming at the beginning of the trip.
Dachau was the first camp opened by Heinrich Himmler in 1933. It was designated as a "work camp" on a former munitions site to house political prisoners. It was not classified as an "extermination camp". There was a gas chamber and two crematoria on site, however, so one must judge for his or herself about Nazi intent and whether or not the intent changed as the war raged on and numbers of prisoners increased. The official claim is that the gas chamber, added in 1942-43 was never used for mass killings because those living in the village of Dachau would have surely noticed. There were 32,000 documented deaths and likely thousands of undocumented deaths. Sickness was a major issue due to the overcrowded bunkers, with multiple prisoners sleeping in one bunk. When American forces liberated the camp on April 29, 1945, one-third of the prisoners were ill.
Arbeit Macht Frei gets me every time. These people, upon arrival, had to pass through a gate that translates as "work sets you free." In no way was this true. Hard work killed these people, and those too old or too young or too feeble to work never had a chance.
The original bunkers are gone, but two have been reconstructed to show what the interiors looked like. There would not have been any mattresses.
There would have been several bunkers. Each empty foundation represents one bunker, and there is another row on the other side of a center aisle.
Memorials for the Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant faiths have also been erected on site.
This was a heavy afternoon. Students and adults on our trip were asked take a small white stone with them to the memorial site. We were asked to place the stones in a place that spoke to us during our visit, in memory of the atrocities that occurred on site. The bus ride back to Munich was quiet, and though Dachau was difficult to see, I am glad to have had the opportunity to remember the victims in person.
Composed on my iPhone. Please excuse the inevitable spelling/typing errors.
