Posted on 04/29/2018 7:21:26 PM PDT by Rummyfan
On April 29, 1945, the U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany’s Nazi regime. A major Dachau subcamp was liberated the same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division.
Established five weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as German chancellor in 1933, Dachau was situated on the outskirts of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich. During its first year, the camp held about 5,000 political prisoners, consisting primarily of German communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. During the next few years, the number of prisoners grew dramatically, and other groups were interned at Dachau, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, and repeat criminals. Beginning in 1938, Jews began to comprise a major portion of camp internees.
Prisoners at Dachau were used as forced laborers, initially in the construction and expansion of the camp and later for German armaments production. The camp served as the training center for SS concentration camp guards and was a model for other Nazi concentration camps. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments. At Dachau, Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to atmospheric pressure on inmates, infected them with malaria and tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled as a result of these experiments.
Thousands of inmates died or were executed at Dachau, and thousands more were transferred to a Nazi extermination center near Linz, Austria, when they became too sick or weak to work. In 1944, to increase war production, the main camp was supplemented by dozens of satellite camps established near armaments factories in southern Germany and Austria. These camps were administered by the main camp and collectively called Dachau.
With the advance of Allied forces against Germany in April 1945, the Germans transferred prisoners from concentration camps near the front to Dachau, leading to a general deterioration of conditions and typhus epidemics. On April 27, 1945, approximately 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to begin a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee, far to the south. The next day, many of the SS guards abandoned the camp. On April 29, the Dachau main camp was liberated by units of the 45th Infantry after a brief battle with the camp’s remaining guards.
As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000 survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more than 10 times that number were executed by the American liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp.
In the course of Dachau’s history, at least 160,000 prisoners passed through the main camp, and 90,000 through the subcamps. Incomplete records indicate that at least 32,000 of the inmates perished at Dachau and its subcamps, but countless more were shipped to extermination camps elsewhere.
Jasenovac was the worst of all
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I think Belzec was the worst. There were only two known Jewish servivors.
Did your Opa survive Buchenwald? I assume you may not have existed had he not, but age matters and that may not be true as so little time has passed since we have known of the camp. Barely more than seventy years. In addition Buchenwald had a rather interesting post WWII history being located in the zone occupied by the Russians.
The swastika predates Native American usage in that it’s featured on some Hindu icons as well. I remember seeing them on statuettes in Canada, except they (the swastika) are inverted.
Some day all of us might be made to bury the victim's of the abortion mills operating openly in our midst.
Some of the prisoners resorted to sabotage on the armaments they were required to work on. I recall one story how a soldier in a foxhole was under fire from an artillery barrage. After it was over and he emerged from his foxhole, his position was surrounded with several artillery shells that failed to explode on impact. If only one had exploded, he would have been killed.
He later learned that the ones who made the artillery shells were political prisoners/slaves of the germans who were forced to do that kind of work. They found a way to sabotage the shells (had something to do with sand) so that they could still be fired, but wouldnt explode upon landing. After the war was won, the surviving prisoners were delighted to learn that their trick worked. Who knows how many lives of allied soldiers they saved.
Thanks...
Will check it out...
Later.
To this very day Germany provides diplomatic support and subsidized weapon-systems for Israel, along with monetary reparations that only ended shortly ago, and may be extended.
If anything, Germany is too caught up in the past, unable to move on. Amends can never truly be made, so they may as well accept that what happened, happened, rather than simultaneously hyper-focus and pretend that the Holocaust didn't exist.
What’s that supposed to mean?
FYI, Dachau was also the designated prison camp for thousands of professed Christians: Germans, Polish, French, and Belgian. Most of them were Catholic priests and bishops. The nazis hated the Catholic Church.
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Everyone should read it.
Everyone.
If we’re playing the “This is the worst concentration camp” game. we can add Sobibor to that list.
Another hell on earth.
WOW! That's *exactly* what happened to us.We arrived in Munich from Frankfurt and decided that we'd get around using the public transit system.We got a hold of a system map and I saw a station called "Dachau".At that time I didn't know that the camps were named after the towns in which they were located so I asked someone if that's where the famous camp had been."Yes",I was told.
But at the same time nobody wanted to talk to me about exactly how to get there.I wasn't sure if it was a language barrier or something else.
It's easy for me to understand why today's Germans wouldn't be thrilled about talking about the camps.Of course they,personally,had nothing to do with them just as we have never been slave owners.
Don't know if you're a Fawlty Towers fan but if you are you'll recall the episode called "The Germans",perhaps the best episode.Just think about the reaction of the German characters...and of the Major for that matter.
For another eight years thereafter, the gulags continued at full force before they were... scaled down.
As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000 survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more than 10 times that number were executed by the American liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp.
Exaggerating the number is part and parcel of Holocaust Denial. So is claiming that the Holocaust is somehow "exaggerated". Thanks Rummyfan.
Even that, in addition to "gay", has been co-opted by David Hogg with #NEVER AGAIN.
To rub more salt in further, David Hogg now has his own page citing his "survival" and "gun control" at Wikipedia. :-/
Sobibor...
A somewhat hopefull story.
FYI...
http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/symbol-swastika-and-its-12000-year-old-history-001312
:)
Poland lost more citizens to the Nazis than any other group, including the slaughter of entire monastic communities. That might explain the fear and silence of those who survived.
We, here in the USA where we have never known the fear of night raids, concentration camps, and religious persecution ought to be a bit more cautious in our condemnations of those who actually lived through it.
That was Theriesenstadt, the so-called ‘paradise ghetto’.
‘War and Remembrance’ had a plot line about life in Theresienstadt.
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