Arbeit Macht Frei - Dachau, Germany

Arbeit Macht Frei translates as Work will set you free. 

These are the words welded into the wrought-iron gate at the Dachau Concentration Camp outside of Munich.  What does this phrase really mean?  Is it to be taken literally?  Some prisoners were released.  Hoess, the first commandant at the Auschwitz main camp, described in his autobiography that the phrase meant that work sets one free in the spiritual sense.  Misery is lost in toil, I suppose.   Was this phrase SS propaganda to mask the nature and purpose of the camp?  To those living outside of the camp, the words, Arbeit Macht Frei, might suggest the purpose of the camp as a labor and re-education facility.  This connotation might diminish and sanitize its true objective.  

Commandant's quarters

First established as a concentration camp for political prisoners, the camp later held captive citizens from a number of countries and ethnic groups as Nazi aggressions rose throughout the 1930s and 1940s. 

Dachau camp layout

Upon arrival to the camp, prisoners would pass though the Jourhaus building with the wrought iron gate shown above.  The Jourhaus was the main office of SS camp personnel.  This building segregated the camp from the outside world.  Each day, camp work-groups would march out through this gate to the factories and then back at the end of the work day. Each day, the prisoners would be reminded that Arbeit Macht Frei. 

Jourhaus

Having passed through this gate, the visitor is met with a stark expanse of the camp grounds.  Where thirty-four barracks once stood, the ground is barren with the exception of two reconstructed barracks and foundation outlines remaining from the thirty-two razed barracks.  Dotting the landscape are several watch towers.  For these long gone barracks, remaining as a testament to their existence is the foundation outline circumscribing each of thirty-two cement barracks' numbers.

Camp where barracks once stood

Foundation outline with barrack number
Guard tower in background

Near the entrance to the camp is the International Memorial which reads,

May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 -1945 because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and respect for their fellow men

International Memorial

At one end of the compound is a large, U-shaped Maintenance building that today houses the memorial exhibitions and movie theater.  The exhibitions provide details on each room's historical function.  Prisoner kitchen, laundry, baths, storerooms, and workshops are all presented.  Also on display is the Shunt room whereby newly arrived prisoners were processed for admission into the camp.  At this stage, a new arrival was stripped of everything including individuality.  On the roof of this building was once painted the phrase,

There is one path to freedom. Its milestones are: obedience, honesty, cleanliness, sobriety, diligence, orderliness, self-sacrifice, truthfulness, love of the fatherland

Prisoners would face this building during Roll Calls with this phrase as a constant reminder.

Maintenance Building with Memorial in foreground

Two of the barracks have been reconstructed for the memorial illustrating the living conditions under which the occupants lived.  Each barrack housed 140 people.

At the opposite end of the camp and segregated from the main camp is the crematorium.  The crematorium is divided into several rooms, each with a specific purpose.  At the height of operations the furnaces were working 24 hours a day.

Crematorium

The crematorium at Dachau has a gas chamber in an adjoining room as well but was not used for that purpose.  Exhibits in the Maintenance building suggest that while it may not have been used for its designed purpose, it was used for SS interrogations and torture.  

Gas Chamber

When we first discussed travel to Austria and Germany, Dachau was one of the sites that my wife wanted to visit if we could fit it into the schedule.  Well, Dachau is an easy half-day trip from Munich and can be reached in about 40 minutes using a combination of train and bus.

I pondered sharing this visit long and hard.  The camp was not easy to experience firsthand.  The exhibits were heartbreaking.  Reviewing these photos of our Dachau day-trip, the thoughts and sensations relived tempted me to reconsider this post more than once.  In the end, sharing this horrific piece of history seemed appropriate.  

Quite an overpowering experience.  With memorials such as Dachau, how could such brutality ever be forgotten?