It's thought-provoking to enter Dachau via a path trod by prisoners making their way to camp from a train station decades ago. Factories once lined some perimeters of Dachau; it's not difficult to imagine that workers and factory bosses could see the new "laborers" being marched into Dachau.
I visited the World War II era concentration camp in the spring of 2006 with a group of students from Texas on an EF Tours educational trip that included stops in France, Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Much of our trip was light hearted: students sampled crepes in Paris and aaah-ed at the Alps.
The Texas City teacher designing the trip, which was titled "Traveling Through History," chose a stop in Germany's Dachau as part of the traveling curriculum. We visited on a cold Munich afternoon; snow threatened and it was almost possible to imagine living in this dreadful place with an empty belly, wearing rags and in the care of sociopaths.
Let tomorrow's leaders heed the message from Dachau:
- "May the example of those who were exterminated here...because they resisted Nazism help to unite the living for the defence of peace and freedom and in respect for their fellow men."
- --From sign near entrance to Dachau