Gedenkstatte Dachau

Having just read ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel, I decided to do a twofer and continue with the same dark subject. While ‘Night’ delivered an emotional and factual punch in the gut, ‘Dachau’ delivered densely packed facts. The effect is not as impactful, though one won’t disagree with the brutality of this atrocity regardless of how the story is told.

Published in 1960, Johannes Neuhäusler was the Auxiliary Bishop of Munich and a prisoner in Dachau for nearly four years (and more at other locations). He was responsible for the atonement ceremony and the consecration of the on-site memorial, the Chapel of the Agony of Christ, on August 5, 1960.

This booklet took a documentary approach addressing subjects such as the layout of the concentration camp, the population of the inmates, the types of forced labor, the punishments, the daily life, and as would be expected based on his profession, spiritual life in the camp. Neuhäusler leveraged the writings of several other clergymen, who were also prisoners of Dachau, having included long quotes from them. I found these quotes to have contained the most horrific stories of the suffering observed or experienced, which I won’t repeat here. Dachau is an unusual concentration camp, being the first and was the model for others. Some ‘normal’ prisoners served their sentence and left. Others were allowed to keep their valuables, purchased items from the canteen, and even mail letters, even though such were heavily scrutinized. The focus of this book was much less on the Jewish people, as it is quite clear that although the basic treatments were the same (long twice daily rollcall, malnutrition, unsanitary), some were simply treated worse. As an example, the Germany clergymen had their own block and were allowed to have (irregular) services.

There are definitely more potent Holocaust books to read than this one. Even though this is the 34th edition, there are still numerous spelling errors and questionable sentence structure. I would skip this unless you have visited Dachau and want a booklet that is specific to it.

Common sentiments found in this and similar books:

“If the miracle should happen, that you live to tell the tale, write it down and tell the world what they did to us.”
“Evil loves the darkness and hates the light.”
“We will forgive but not forget.” ( )