On Saturday, I headed into Bavaria and visited two areas. One was Dachau. It is the site of a former Nazi Concentration camp…the dark history of Germany.

The Dachau camp was reopened in the 1960’s as a memorial and there is no admission fee to enter the site. If you’d like a tower, or a guide, there is a small fee.

When you park and walk along the path to the camp, you don’t know it yet…but this is the path the prisoners were forced to walk along to enter Dachau.

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The main gate that all prisoners go through to enter… this is how all visitors today still enter.

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[flickr]photo:2471090049[/flickr] a Guard tower at the camp.

[flickr]photo:2471913468[/flickr] the main area between the prisoners barracks. Lined with poplar trees. The foundations remain, and they have rebuilt two of the barracks.

[flickr]photo:2471091075[/flickr] What one of the barracks looked like.

[flickr]photo:2471091567[/flickr] This is the second crematorium. The first one was too small.

[flickr]photo:2471913954[/flickr] The actual incinerators in the crematorium.

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A memorial on the Dachau memorial site, created by a survivor of Dachau.

I spent several hours at Dachau Memorial site. The main support building, the largest building houses the main museum. It has accounts from the period, and political information. There is a video show in the center to watch as well. (It has English and German)

I hadn’t intended on spending half a day at Dachau, but I felt in no hurry to leave either. I was there on a Saturday. The survivors hold a reunion on the first Sunday after liberation every year. That was Sunday, 5/4/2008. They were setting up the chairs in the prisoners gathering area for the event Sunday as I was leaving.