Alert: This is not gonna be a good story or picture so please read and see it wisely
When I arrived Munich on 25th evening, Giovanni told me that next day there will be a memorial of bomb terror that happened on Octoberfest 40 years ago. The President of Germany and the major of Bayern will give a speech in the place where it happened 40 years ago and that is on the entrance gate of Octoberfest in Theresienwiesse U-bahn station. They have built a kind of monument to remember the attack and the survivors.
I went around the monument to see some comments from the survivors and it is quiet sad, even though they survived the attack, it still affected their daily lives no matter how much times has fly.
Few days later, Radite and I visited Da-Chau, it is the first concentration camp that ever built on Hitler’s time. Claudia already gave me a warning that it will not be for a faint hearted.
We had a tour guide named Hans and I can see that it is very very hard for him to explain to us what happened at that time, he re-tell the story based on the notes that one prisoner made during his time serving in the camp. He quote on what the guard told the prisoners “You have no rights, you are a piece of $h#t and will be treated like so” the prisoners were gathered in a big open space and they have been taken away all their belongings, taken to shower, shaved their hair and given a stripes pajamas that doesn’t need to be fit with their body and they have numbers on their pajamas, they all looks like an unhappy clown. This is the moment of humiliation played among them.
They have been told that “work makes you free” even that slogan written on the gate where all prisoners came in but it’s just a nice slogan, they can’t really get out and no matter how good they are on their work, all the rights are in the guards hands. He showed us what kind of barracks that they lived on, how many people actually lived there. When they built Da Chau it was meant for 5,000 prisoners only but they miscalculated it and got 8 times more, it was around 40,000 prisoners there so all the barracks were overloaded.
He also informed us that suicide was the favorite option and one of the way to suicide is by trying to escape so the guard will shot them or run themselves to the electric wire and that pretty much the options to ended their suffering. Even if they managed to get out they will get caught again and once they caught back to the concentration camp, the guard will put a card saying “I’m here again” and they will do whatever they want with them and in the end they will die. Hans told me the max a run away prisoner can live outside was only 2 months because all the people are not allowed to help them so they will starve themselves or hide in forest and the police will come with their train dogs 24/7 to find them.
I could see he rubbed his eyes when we went to the gas chamber and he can’t even get in to the chamber, he just waited for us outside.
He recommended us to visit the museum and there you will see the story of what did they do to all the prisoners and how many concentration camps out there. There are really too many stories there and honestly speaking, I can’t even read everything it’s just too sick to imagine that one person could have such power to create this sickening system.
Da Chau has created the app and has some spots that we can scan the QR code and see the real photo at that time and honestly it is really inhuman.
When in the end they got liberated they didn’t know what to do, quote from the audio guide “Quite a few people, myself included, just could not understand what was going on, that there was no need to be afraid anymore, that one minute we were hunted beasts and the next we were free men. I can’t remember there being lots of cheering, not many of us had the strength for wild delight, but everyone expressed their joy in their own way. People got on their knees and prayed, cried, laughed, threw themselves onto their liberators and embraced them. Many of the prisoners were just lying around apathetically, weakened and dazed. Some of them survived the liberation only for a few hours or days. They could not be saved and did not even realize that they were free” and that is very sad my friend.
I can’t believe that I’m standing in a real concrete that has been here since 1933, it is a really sad and dark history of humanity and to all the survivors you deserve a very high respect.
Thank you for all people involved to make Da Chau open to public, thank you for all the guides either is audio guide or real tour guide that are open minded and brave to tell us the story.
I really agree that never again this kind of things should ever happen. Lets make one of Michael Jackson’s song become a reality one day, no more terrorism, no more cruelty, no more classifying people based on their race, one day where everyone just come together despite all difference to heal the world, make it a better place, for you and for me and the entire human race.