8 Facts About Dachau Concentration Camp You Didn’t Know

Opened on March 22, 1933, just two months after Adolf Hitler become the Chancellor of Germany, the Dachau Concentration Camp was the first concentration camp set up by the Nazi government. This haunting site served as a blueprint, setting the devastating stage for other camps that would emerge during World War II.

Dachau Concentration Camp was not merely a concentration camp; it served as a vital training center for the SS troops. Many of the guards who served at other camps, including Auschwitz, had been trained at Dachau.

The camp also had a medical experimentation facility where victims were subjected to a variety of horrific experiments, including hypothermia, experimental drug testing, malaria, and bone transplantation.

Dachau Concentration Camp wasn’t just the first of its kind but also the longest operational concentration camp. It ran from 1933 to 1945, almost as long as the Nazi regime itself.

The entrance gate of Dachau bore the sinister slogan "Arbeit macht frei," meaning "Work sets you free," a cruel irony that misled prisoners into a false hope of eventual release through labor.

Established in 1965, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site transformed the former camp into a place of remembrance and education, preserving its structures and exhibits to honor victims and ensure the horrors of the past are never forgotten

The surviving victims of the concentration camp were liberated by American troops on April 29, 1945. Between 1933 and 1938, the majority of detainees consisted of German SS soldiers and citizens who were imprisoned on grounds of political affiliation. Nazi war criminals were brought to justice, shedding light on the camp's atrocities.

The camp was originally intended to hold political prisoners, but it soon became a place where anyone who was considered an enemy of the Nazi regime could be sent, including Jews, Romani, people with disabilities, and Jehovah's Witnesses.