Dachua Concentration Camp--Day9

For those who might be following this very long process of getting our holiday blogged, you may have noticed Day 8 is not blogged.  The Schmidt's had left to meet up with him mom who had just moved to Germany.  We stayed at camp all day! We swam in the pool, played games and just had a day of 'rest'. Day 9 started with packing up camp and heading a bit north towards Munich. We stopped at the Dachua Concentration Camp, and was so grateful in our decision to take the kids here. Carter has studied WWII in school and we knew he would understand enough to feel the impact of our visit. We weren't sure about the others, but felt it an important time to teach our children how important it is to love one another, always, and no matter what. The site itself is set up with a museum, and one block built with examples of what room and board would have been. There is also the actual gas chamber rooms and crematorium still standing.

A memorial for those lost at the camp. 

The entry gate...so many lives changes beyond this gate. I still am humbled as to how blessed my life is when I look at this picture. 

A chapel that is built on site as a remembrance. It is said it was built of concrete and was circular to break from the uniformity of the structures that were at the concentration camp.

Mike and the kiddos are standing at what would have been the roll call area and common meeting area. Then it is one of the guard towers.

It was just Taylor, Carter and myself who went into the crematorium building because some other needed the toilets. However, I think it was an eye opening experience for them both. I didn't leave any details out when explaining the different rooms. Each was labeled with what the room was used for including the 'shower' room. Carter and Taylor are standing in the stripping room, and both said they didn't really feel like smiling because it was such a sad thing that happened in these rooms. I do have to mention that it was recorded that Dachua never participated in mass killings in the gas chamber room, but the effect was enough to feel the reverence that these spaces radiated from them. The above crematorium was one of the newer built furnaces to keep up with the death toll. The lower furnace was the original on the site before they had to expand. I can't remember the exact numbers that they did give but there were tens of thousands of people who were cremated here.

A statue on site that is dedicated to all those who's name we will never know who lost their lives at the concentration camp. 

A sculpture outside the museum.

Few things make our children pause and reflect how blessed they are. Although some of them may not have understood the degree of inhumanity they were remembering, I don't know that I can comprehend it, they did feel something different. This was a moment on our trip that taught us to be ever so grateful for what we have been given. Including the trials we might face, because there are others in this world who suffer to a deeper degree that we may never understand, or ever want to understand for that matter.