Dachau concentration camp memorial

The KZ-Gedenkstätte Dachau stands just north-west of Munich on the eastern edge of the town of Dachau. It occupies part of the former prisoner grounds of the concentration camp opened in 1933. The site now includes preserved camp buildings, a museum and several memorial structures. More than a million visitors come every year from every continent to walk where history was made. The place matters because it was the first Nazi camp and a model for others that followed. In 1945 survivors marked the liberation with a simple ceremony in the crematorium. Ten years later an international committee pressed for a proper memorial rather than demolition. The present memorial opened in 1965 after years of campaigning by figures such as Johannes Neuhäusler and Hans-Jochen Vogel. Concrete outlines of thirty-two barracks mark where rows of huts once stood. The International Monument by Nandor Glid on the former roll-call square remains a powerful centrepiece. Visitors enter through the original iron gate marked Arbeit macht frei. The museum in the former laundry building shows the prisoners’ route from arrival to death. The Jewish memorial chapel and the Protestant Reconciliation Church stand near the site of the barracks. A Russian Orthodox chapel built in 1994 honours Orthodox victims. The Jourhaus entrance now leads straight to the roll-call area where survivors gathered in 1945. The whole memorial is a place for quiet learning and remembrance.