Our visit to the first concentration camp established by the Nazi regime happened to coincide with the anniversary of VE (Victory in Europe) Day, May 8. The camps had been liberated by the Americans on April 29, 1945. The two anniversaries must have been the reason for almost a hundred wreaths and other floral arrangements bearing ribbons from almost as many countries lined up along the wall beneath the famous iron memorial sculpture. It depicts crippled bodies attempting to extricate themselves from barbed wire.
We spent almost three hours at the site, and we probably could have spent more time. Only two of the barracks remain (out of dozens), but it was enough for us to get an idea of what life must have been like. Some bunks remain, and also a room of latrines lined up in military fashion.
The memorial site was overflowing with Italian high school students. Our coach driver, Peter, said that the government pays for one major field trip every year for these students, and that must be why they were here. It lent a strangely festive atmosphere to the experience.
I first visited this site in 1969, and I’ve been back several times since then, in addition to visiting Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. I’m always struck by two things: how the smells of flowers and grass and the sounds of birds seem even louder and more intense than in other settings; and how attractive the adjacent towns appear to be. This is not so much the banality of evil as the normality of it.
One curious fact: Dachau, like many other concentration camps, became a DP (displaced person) camp after the war and was in use until at least the mid-50s. The conditions were not very good, and people continued to suffer, although certainly not to the degree they had before.
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