PDPW Day 11 Dachau

 

Heading to Dachau I wasn't sure what I would experience, feel, or see.  Having been to the Holocaust museum in Washington DC it was overwhelming and heartbreaking to see.  When arriving we were rushed on time as we were delayed in our travel.  We would be very limited on our visiting time.  We walked thru the exhibits swiftly to make it to the movie in the museum.  Given the time we had it was enough to make one think about what happened and sadness of how few years existed since. 

 

Placed near the crematorium reading " Remember how we died here" 

Walking the building was eerie knowing how many lives were lost in this building.

 

This was the old crematorium that had to be replaced as it couldn't keep up with "capacity".  It was sad that the lives of people were termed as capacity. 

The barracks were built to hold 200, but were holding 2000 towards the end. 

A memorial declaring "never again"in  Yiddish using Hebrew letters, and in French,

 English, German and Russian.

"Here the sculpture by Nandor Glid emerges: fence posts, ditches and barbed wire are reminiscent of the security facilities installed around the camp. The human skeleton commemorates those, who in an act of desperation, jumped into the barbed wire fence. Death in the concentration camp was commonplace and ubiquitous. This depiction is not only symbolic, it also tells the story of the many suicides that were committed in this way in the Dachau concentration camp. As the visitor enters further into the incline, the motif of humans caught in barbed wire intensifies, like an altarpiece, a triptych. The sculpture is framed by cement posts that reflect the security installation of the former concentration camp. This is one example of how the monument connects art and reality in its design".

 

This sculpture was beyond bazaar as it resembled just fragments caught in a fence.  Once you get closer you make out the bodies entangled in the fence.  It was so profound and disturbing.  It made me think of all the residents that lived within the area that had no idea what was going on in the close proximity of their homes.