The Dachau Concentration Camp

Januay 30, 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. With his

powerful speaches and promises to the people he was able to create a vary strong

army. Now that Hitler had an army he went mainly after the jews, in his ethnic

cleansing. The army would take jewish people out of their homes, bussiness, and

hidding places, and sent them to concentration camps that would kill them, tourcher

them and camps that made them work.

The Dachau Concentration camp was the first forced labor camp located

in Germany. The camp opened on Wedesday, March 22, with enough room to hold

5000 prisoners. By the first of May, 1933 there were only 1,200 prisoners in the

camp and most of them were Jewish Doctors and Lawyers. Close to the end of the

year 1933, almost 4,800 registered prisoners had been hauled into the Dachau camp.

The guards began murdering inmates from day one which lead to the problem of no

where to dospose of the bodies. Death was caused by old age, disease, hunger, and

violations to camp rules. One of the big diseases that killed a lot of inmates was lice-

borne typhus. In 1940 with bodies stacked aginest the camp walls the

disposal of bodies reached a critical point. By 1940 nearly 22,600 prisiners passed

through the camp and the number of deaths may never be known. Then they began

burning the bodies and spreading ashes all over the camp. That gave a little more

space in the camp.

Also at the camp there was medical experments that thourched the prisoners

until they died. There were gas chambers at the camp too but never put into use.

The Dachau camp was liberated by the Untited States, there were 2,539

Jewish survivors, including 225 women, according to the American Army and

According to a survivor most of these Jews had been brought to the Dachau camp

from Poland in the final days of the camp and some of them had been in the camp

for only a few days when the American Army liberated the camp.

The former concentration camp at Dachau is now a Memorial Site where

tourists can visit a Museum with a collection of World War II photographs and pay

homage to the victims of the Holocaust. Visitors can also see the infamous gas

chamber, reconstructed prisoner barracks, memorial monuments, and a Catholic

Carmelite convent which is entered through one of the former camp guard towers.

The former concentration camp is located just outside the charming town of Dachau

in Germany.