Day 23 of the EuroVelo6 bicycle ride across Europe. Today was a rest day in Regensburg and since it was only about an hour away, Ronni and I decided to visit the Dachau Concentration Camp memorial. Having taught about those camps for over 35 years it was impressive to have actually been able to visit one of the most notorious. In 1933 because the prisons were overfilling, Hitler's regime, under the notorious Himmler, built the first concentration camp which became the model for all the other camps across Europe during WWII. The SS training facility was headquartered here. Dachau was first to be used as a facility for political prisoners but was later used to intern, gypsies, homosexuals, foreigners, Catholic priests, foreign nationals in addition to the Jews. There were 32,000 documented deaths as well as thousands that were undocumented. (Google for more specific information). I still amazes me at how human beings could treat other humans in such a horrible manner. I still have difficulty wrapping my head around it. The pics help tell the story. And no, I will not put pics of mounds of dead bodies on my posts.

                                                         Entrance to Dachau

                                                Bronze statue commemorating struggles

                                                Area for torture and killing new arrivals

                                                      Firing squad wall

                                                  original wall around camp

                                                    Where prison quarters were built

                                                        Guard Tower

Entrance gate