Good evening viewers, and welcome to the very last day of our tour around Europe. It’s hard to believe that we are leaving the beautiful country of Germany tomorrow, making our way back home. A lot of the students are ready to go home, however, many saying that they miss seeing their families and their pets back home. We enjoyed our last day in Munich however, making sure to see and do as much as possible before it was too late for us to do so. We even left Munich for the first half of the day, finishing the subject of World War II on a very dramatic, and emotional note. Everything was summed up immediately as soon as we stepped out of the bus, finding our eyes setting on the Dachau concentration camp.

Not more than a half an hour away from Munich, there lies the Dachau concentration camp, which has a recorded intake of 206,206 prisoners and 31,951 deaths. There is an estimated amount of over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries, two-thirds being political prisoners and nearly one-third being that of Jews. 25,613 prisoners who are believed to have died in the camp and another 10,000 in its sub camps from disease, malnutrition and suicide. Not only were these prisoners starved and worked to death, they were also used as scientific experiments, being tested in some of the worst ways possible. Though the gas chambers at the concentration camps weren’t used, the furnaces were used regularly – those furnaces having the purpose to cremating thousands of bodies of those who died from sickness, starvation, and for those who were brutally murdered in some of the worst ways possible. All of these horrible things laid behind a black gate which read, “Work makes you free,” and here we were walking right through them.

Stepping through those gates, everyone could feel the change of atmosphere that we were used to in Munich. Here, it was quiet. Here, all you could do was think and fall into your own thoughts. To think of what happened here, and to experience walking on that very ground years later, you can’t help but to feel all kinds of emotions: anger towards those who could be so inhumane and treat other humans like they did; and sadness for all of those who had to suffer, and who lost their lives here on this very location. Everyone was quiet inside of the concentration camp, all the students mostly breaking up on their own to explore the entire camp from corner to corner. I, myself, took a walk alone, where I took in the whole thing in silence. Walking through the barracks, where wooden beds were placed, I couldn’t even begin to think of how cramped it must’ve been in the small rooms that it had. There were a total of thirty barracks in all, every single one but two having been torn down and to the ground – all that was left were the borders or where they once were on the ground. Large stones numbered which barrack was which, one barrack catching my eye more than others: Barrack 27. Next to the stone number, laid two white roses. I looked at it in silence for a good few minutes, trying to think of a reason for the two roses being laid there. Did a loved one leave it there to commemorate a family member who stayed there? Did they get out alive? I will never know but the symbolism of the rose on the ground was a beautiful one.

I walked around for quite some time around the camp, walking the width of the barb wired fences, and into an area that I wasn’t quite prepared for. I came to the location where the exterminations took place. Walking into the one long building with the large brick pillar coming up the middle, I found myself in one of four rooms. The first was where prisoners were informed of having to take a ‘shower’. This is where they stripped themselves of their clothes and waited to be allowed in. The next room was the ‘showering’ room. There were holes and vents everywhere, numbers to about twenty different vents in the room. This is where gas filled up the room and killed thousands of innocent victims. The third room was completely empty. A sign read that this was where those thousands of bodies were stacked on top of each other after the ‘shower’ was over. The last room was called the furnace room, where four furnace beds laid, and were able to fit at least three or four bodies in at a time. Staying in the building made me feel uncomfortable, a suffocating feeling almost, which drove me to get out of there as quickly as possible. Knowing that the gas chamber wasn’t used, the idea of this happening all over at different concentration camps was very unsettling. Near the death building, there was a trail that I then walked. At different sections of the trail, laid different signs. One showed the exact location where prisoners were murdered and shot, a ditch nearby to allow the blood to flow into it. Another one was an unmarked grave, which is believed to have hundreds of unknown bodies that were killed at the camp. Another grave was nearby, containing ashes of those who were placed in the furnace.

The overall visit at the Dachau concentration camp was…. eye opening. Its terrible to think of what actually happened here and what happened just in general. It was brilliant on the instructor’s behalf to finish the tour at the camp; we discussed World War II and the different aspects of it throughout the two weeks we have been over here, and we end it by learning of the worst causalities of the war. Why there was a war in the first place. Why we needed to step in and fight in the war in the first place. Thousands of innocent people were dying for no reason at all, and it needed to be stop. Its just sad to think that those thousands weren’t able to see the day when American forces seized the concentration camp of Dachau, releasing all prisoners and telling them that they were free at last.

This trip has been nothing but amazing, and I speak for everyone when I say that it was all worthwhile. We learned so much during this trip, able to see things and learn things more clearly by seeing the locations first hand. From Pointe du Hoc and the craters that littered the ground there, to the concentration camp that left a feeling of sadness no matter where you turned, I now understand the reason this course was put together. I also understand how important history is and how crucial it is to know it. Its sad to leave the lands of Europe tomorrow, but no doubt I will be back soon to walk these grounds again.

Thank you to the viewers for reading this blog.

Thank you to Margaret for being one awesome tour guide.

Thank you to Dr Butler and Dr Riggs for opening the eyes of an art major, allowing her to recognize the love of history she never knew she had until now.