The last thing we saw before leaving Dachau was a Russian Orthodox chapel. Its modular structure was erected shortly before the Soviet Union crumbled, Gerd Modert told us.
The tour guide, who trains Dachau’s tour guides, said the Soviets wanted a record of their mistreatment at the camp.
One could see the nearly 30-year-old wooden structure as a collapsing society’s feverish desire to solidify its past; but the chapel is more than a marker exclaiming one group’s presence. The building is a testament to Dachau’s inherent tension: preserve and persist, sometimes suppress but expand.
The camp, we learned, was originally constructed in 1933 by political prisoners for political prisoners. During the next 12 years more than 200,000 people entered Dachau, a quarter were Jewish. 41,500 inmates were killed.
Dachau had a prison.
Sandwiched between the entrance gate and roll call site, the prison within a prison cautioned Dachau’s inmates.
Torture and execution occurred at the interior prison, Modert told us, but the Nazis eventually moved the space off-site to a nearby village where the SS had a shooting range — the sound of repeated murder was too alarming. Dachau administrators worried about triggering, instigating, maybe motivating, their captives, we learned.
Dachau has two crematoria. After the first was built the Nazis realized they needed something bigger, Modert told us.
The second crematorium was designed to maximize efficiency: prisoners entered, undressed, were gassed then cremated.
The second crematorium was used but mass extermination occurred elsewhere.
“You can’t always use reason to understand why the Nazis did certain things,” Modert said.
A photo of the crematorium with smoke billowing hangs next to the building. The picture was taken by a prisoner who snuck a camera into Dachau.
The photographer, Jean Brichaux, wanted people to see what happened here, Modert said.
Between 1933 and 1945 Dachau grew. Bunks were added. When the war ended, German refugees used the camp; it offered suitable housing for families with small children.
A memorial was dedicated at Dachau on the day of liberation. In the 1960s, Dachau was transformed into a memorial site.
The bunks, which once held prisoners then German refugees, were razed. Two new bunks were built to remind visitors what happened at the site.
For more than two hours we moved through Dachau. Spaces were shown, history was shared, photographs were taken.
Modert hurried us along.
“If I had time I’d show you this,” he said.
There was a tension at Dachau: preserve and persist, sometimes suppress but expand.