Dachau

Heinrich went to Dachau, which is an old Nazi Concentration Camp. This was a place where they put people they didn't like and treated them very badly. Heinrich saw the cellblock where they kept important political prisoners and he also saw the barracks where lots of prisoners all had to stay in very cramped quarters.

 

 

The sign at the front of the prison yard had a sign that made fun of the prisoners. It says Arbeit macht frei, which means working makes you free. But no matter how hard they worked they didn't have any chance to be free.

There is a monument in front of the offices with a statue that shows the suffering of the prisoners.

There is also a wall with the different symbols that prisoners had to wear. The symbols showed what kind of prisoner each person was. Whether he was a criminal, a Pole, a Jew, a Priest. Since someone could be a Polish Jew or a criminal priest, the symbols would be combined in different patterns and made into patches that the prisoners had to wear on their clothes. It was a bleak drizzly day when Heinrich visited. Seemed appropriate for such a sad place to have a day where even the sky cried.