History of Dachau

History of Dachau

The Holocaust was the most important event of the twenieth century. Beyond that the germans extinguished the lives of millions of jews is really difficult to understand the meaning behind it, and the reasons the people had to became part of this atrocity.

Dachau was inaugurated in order to produce gunpowder on March 22, 1933 during World war I. However it will always be remembered for its relationship as concentration camp in the Holocaust during the Nazi period.

Eventhough Dachau was primarily a camp for men most people just remember the dark side of it. which was used during the genocide of the jews to imprison communists, social democrats, trade union leaders, religious dissidents, common criminals,men gypsies, homosexuals, asocials, spies, fighters resistance and others who were considered enemies of the state. Although there were not only jews prisioners at the concentration camp, these were kept isolated and treatened far worse than the others.

The alleged reasons given for the creation of concentration camps such as Dachau was the burning of the Reichstag, which was the Congressional building in Berlin, on the night of February 27, 1933. Four weeks before Germany set fire against themeselves in order to begin a regn of terror, accusing the communists of start the fire in protest of the appointment of Hitler as the chancellor and the scheduled Congressional election to confirm his appointment.

It was until the arrival of the Allies that the world realized about the magnitude that the nazi ideology had reached. The description given for the soldiers in the 42nd rainbow infantry division leave amazed to more than one person. There was no running water in the camp and drinking water had to be brought in by trucks. The degrading conditions employed in Dachau originated a typhus epidemic which the Germans were unprepared causing the death of 400 prisoners per day.There was no water for the showers, nor any water to flush the toilets. Among the extreme living conditions that people were was overpopulation. In a camp designed for 5000 people were around 15,000 and by the time the liberators arrived, there were over 30,000 prisoners in the camp.

When finally Germany was defeated the evacuation of prisoners was not what was expected. The prisoners had to walk for several days because Allied bombs were destroying the railway including trains load of women and children killing many of the people.

In addition, even that there were 5 trucks loads of food (which had been brought in by the Red Cross) people would not be able to eat it, as Abraham Lewent survivor of the Holocaust explains:

I remember I was lying. This guy said "God, what a sight!". People began to lift. The rose one by one. Most were dead, and those who were alive, were set on trucks, and took them to hospitals or were tents and laid there. They were given water and Red Cross parcels. This was not good at all either, because when people received those packets with milk powder, chocolate, canned meat, were so hungry and careless that they would ate it inmediately. Hundreds died from eating those things, because their stomachs were not used to receiving food.

There was a boy at my side, I think he was Hungarian or Romanian. He was half dead too. I do not know if he had ever been a doctor or something. But when he received the package, said: "Do not eat, do not eat anything. If you eat something of that you will die. If you have sugar, put some in your mouth and suck it. That's All you have to do," he said, "throw the rest, If you want conserve it, but do not eat anything. Do not drink the milk, eat the chocolate or the meat (because they used to give you a can of Spam meat) do not eat it, because if you do you will die. And that's what happened. Those who ate the provisions, got

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