The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Germany

I was not aware that today, January 27, is the International Holocaust Remembrance Day until I read this post by Ermest.

This took me back in memory to the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Germany visit slightly before the lockdown.

I visited this place during my business trip to Munich. We reached there by bus and had to walk a lot from the last bus stop up to the entrance of the memorial site. Also, there is plenty of walking within the site premises since it is spread over a vast area. So, make sure you carry enough water or energy drinks.

Fortunately, we started from Munich and arrived early in the morning. Then signed up for a guided tour at the visitor center. Entry to the memorial is free but the tour is a paid service. They have both English and German language tours that started at 12 noon and took about 2 hours to complete.

There is a lot of information in the memorial site presented on large display boards and posters. This site also hosts a museum.

I visited Germany during the winter and was dressed appropriately for walking and the weather.

There is a souvenir shop and also a small cafeteria in the visitor center.

Note that neither the parking is free nor the toilet, and not even drinking water.
This came as a cultural shock to me since most museums in Delhi have these facilities for free.
In fact, some of the largest museums in Delhi have free entrances, free guided tours besides free parking, free toilets and free drinking water.

I visited this place before I was a local guide or was using Google Maps, so my memory about the accessibility features is sketchy but I remember people moving around on wheelchairs inside the campus and the various galleries of the museum, so there must have been ramps and features for the differently abled.

This memorial is meant for the future generations, so they do not forget the human tragedies, and never repeat them.

Overall, it was a very sobering place and the overcast sky added to the eerie calmness leaving me restless after knowing about the horrific things that happened to common people back in those days.

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thank you for sharing @TusharSuradkar . everyone leaves the same feeling today. we commemorate those who lost their lives with respect :pray:t2:

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Hi @TusharSuradkar Thanks for sharing this post and i was not aware of this place. You have added some knowledge about this place today. I will read it’s history in detail. By your photos I can feel the atmosphere there as you described. Thank you so much again.

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Hello @TusharSuradkar

Thank you for the post. I live not far away from Dachau and wrote 2018 this post.

https://www.localguidesconnect.com/t5/Travel-and-Advice/One-place-of-Holocaust-Dachau/m-p/950466/highlight/true#M44242

Yes, it is always sad to see this place, especially when being aware that history is made by your own nation….

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Hi @TorM

Nice post with clearer photos, I had only a tiny low-res mobile camera back then.

Most countries in the world have some dark past with mistakes, though somehow, I feel the Germans take it a bit more seriously than others and this is perhaps because the holocaust is a bit more recent.

Around the same time as the holocaust, Winston Churchill of England diverted all food grain from India to the ongoing war in Europe and famously said, “the starvation of anyhow underfed Indians is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks”, leaving about 4 million Indians to die for lack of food. Though I must say Indians had no fault in this apart from being stuck up as a British colony back then.

Eventually with help from Germany, Subhash Bose an Indian civil servant raised an army compelling the British to leave India, but unfortunately no memorial or mention about the atrocities exist today.