Dachau: The First Nazi Concentration Camp

At the beginning of World War II there were nine million Jews, at the end there were three million. In the Jewish concentration camp’s, there were about six million Jews killed under Adolf Hitler’s commands. In the Japanese internment camp’s, there were about 127,000 people imprisoned. There was a total of 11,127,000 people imprisoned in the internment and the concentration camps combined. The Japanese camp’s and the Jewish concentration camp’s situation were the same because both cultures were excluded from their communities, both were forced to live in undesirable places, and they were both treated cruelly and unfairly.

Dachau was the first concentration camp near Munich, Germany. It was established in March, 1993, by the National Socialist government. In the beginning, Dachau had a capacity of 5,000 prisoners and detained only political inmates. Over time, other groups were held captive. On April 11, the S.S. took over the camp. The first commandant of Dachau was Theodore Eicke. Dachau was a exemplary camp for how to manage with anyone reputed to be a risk to the Nazi administration and how to manage procedures and authority under Eicke's guidance.

A concentration camp refers to a camp or closed area where people are detained under brutal conditions usually having no access to legal rights of arrest and imprisonment that would normally be accepted in a democracy. Concentration camps played a large part in the mass killing of Jews in Europe lead by Adolf Hitler. An example of a concentration camp is Dachau.

The Holocaust was the elimination of millions of Jews. This terrible incident left many families and innocent people scarred. There were few survivors and most died in very harsh and cruel ways. Dachau Concentration Camp was a very cruel death camp where many Jews were executed during World War II.

Auschwitz Birkenau located in Oswiecim Poland, The holocaust began in May 26, 1940. Over 1.1 million people had died at birkenau many people had died because of hunger, disease, horrible conditions, and the gas chambers. The holocaust began shortly after world war 2 began, hitler and the nazi party rose to power due to political power circumstances. Germans could not believe the defeat that had happened at world war 1, the government in germany so bad with money they needed somebody that could help them out and fix germany.

On March 9, 1933, a few weeks after Hitler accepted force, the initially sorted out assaults on German rivals of the administration and on Jews broke out crosswise over Germany. Under two weeks after the fact, Dachau, the principal Nazi inhumane imprisonment, was opened. Arranged close Munich, Dachau turned into a position of internment for German Jews, Communists, Socialists, and liberals – anybody whom the Reich considered its foe. It turned into the model for the system of inhumane imprisonments that would be built up later by the Nazis.

In the early 1930s, the residents of the picturesque city of Dachau, Germany, were completely unaware of the horrific events about to unfold that would overshadow their city still today. The citizens of Dachau were oblivious that their city was going to become the origin of concentration camps and of the Holocaust, the mass murder committed by the Nazi s in World War II. Dachau Concentration Camp, which would soon be placed on the edge of their community, would serve as a model for all Nazi extermination camps. This perfect prototype of a Nazi killing machine has come to represent the start of the horror-filled Holocaust and the Nazi's determination to achieve a perfect society during World War II.

Ever since we started talking about the Holocaust, I have been interested in learning more about Dachau concentration camp. I have actually been to Dachau and I knew a small amount of information about it but now I know way more. The most surprising thing I learned about Dachau was that is was the first camp ever built, but it was not to brutally beat the prisoners but eventually turned into a prison like that. Also that if someone tried to escape, the whole prison was punished. Why learning about this matters because the Holocaust was the most tragic event to ever happen in history. Also this event is something that everyone should be educated on and know what it was like back then and what people had to go through. The part I enjoyed most

Throughout the life at Dachau concentration camp, isolation was a huge deal. Once the prisoners arrived at the camp, they were separated boys and girls and their personal belongs were taken from them. The younger kids and their mom, and the older people were sent straight to the gas chamber because they believed that they were not able to do any labor. There were numerous amounts detention buildings in Dachau. Shunt room and bunkers were two that they used often. Bunkers isolated rebellious and defiant prisoners, which there were harsher prison conditions, torture and murder. Now the shunt room was admission for the prisoners, it was brutal and was meant for the prisoners loss of rights, liberty, and human autonomy. For jews they had a different

So he expected his people to look perfect. Another reason would be that he just wanted to kill them (Vail 114). The first concentration camp built was called Dachau. 200,000 people moved there through the years of 1933-1945 (Blohm 21). But people first moved there March 32, 1933 (Adler 105).

So let's learn about Dachau. Dachau was established on March 10, 1933, around five weeks after Adolf Hitler became chancellor. Dachau became the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany. The camp lasted from 1933 to 1945. Munich was the nearest town that was about 12 miles south of Dachau.

In the month of March 1933, one of the first camps, Dachau, was opened. Dachau was a concentration camp, or a prison camp maintained by the Third Reich, [the name for Germany when the government was controlled by Adolf Hitler]. Aside these concentration camps was two other types of camps; labor camps, and death camps. A main concentration camp was Theresienstadt. Theresienstadt was located in what is now known as the Czech Republic. More than 150,000 were kept there for months until being sent to their deaths in Treblinka and Auschwitz death camps. The people in

Dachau was very deadly and one of the concentration camps you would not want to go to. Around 63.2% people who went through Dachau ended up dead. The concentration camp Dachau affected the prisoners after the Holocaust because the camp was one of the most deadliest concentration camps and was the largest camp, prisoners would be worked to death, go through experiments and then get killed from diseases, but when liberation happened it was a great feeling for the prisoners for what they were able to do. Dachau was one of the most deadliest concentration camps because you worked to nearly death and would get sent through 40 other sub camps. Dachau was also one of the largest concentration camps and had the hardest work to do because they would

The conditions of the camp were unbearable. The prisoners were barely fed, mainly bread and water, and were cramped in small sleeping arrangements. "Hundreds slept in triple-tiered rows of bunks (Adler 51)." In the quarters that they stayed, there were no adequate cleaning facilities or restrooms for the prisoners. They rarely were able to change clothes which meant the "clothes were always infested with lice (Swiebocka 18)." Those were sick went to the infirmary where also there were eventually killed in the gas chambers or a lethal injection. The Germans did not want to have anyone not capable of hard work to live. Prisoners were also harshly punished for small things such as taking food or "relieving themselves during work hours (Swiebocka 19)." The biggest punishment was execution. The most common punishment was to receive lashings with a whip.

At first, the Nazis were only killing political opponents like Communists and/or Social Democrats, for which their harshest persecution was used. Many of the first prisoners sent to Dachau (The first official concentration camp opened near Munich in March of 1933) were communists. By July, the concentration camps run by the Germans held around 27,000 people in what they called “protective custody.” The Nazis had huge rallies and acts of symbolism such as burning of books by Jews. During the years of 1933 to 1939, the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were able to leave Germany got out quickly, but many were left behind, and they lived their lives in a constant state of uncertainty and fear. During the fall of 1939, Hitler started the so-called Euthanasia Program. The Euthanasia Program allowed Nazi officials to select around 70,000 German citizens institutionalized for mental illnesses or disabilities. These Germans were to be gassed to death. After prominent German