(Later on in the post I will be writing about a Nazi concentration camp and while there will be no pictures the words may be difficult.)

Woah. We are officially at the three week mark! It doesn’t seem that long at all. Although to be honest I don’t really know what day of the week it is. Tuesday I think? All I know is what number day it is. It’s liberating to not define a schedule by days of the week.

In fact, one of the girls we met on our tour today was describing her first taste of “the real world” and perfectly summed up my own fears. She said she was so terrified after a few weeks at her 9 to 5 job she quit because her coworkers would come in every day and be like “ohh Monday sucks. Tuesday is the worst. Wednesday means only two more days.” And so on.

Maybe it’s living in a fantasy world, but I hope whatever job I have in the future I enjoy and look forward to the week in its entirety. And not spend my whole life in a repeating countdown of seven days.

Today was an interesting day. Honestly I wasn’t (and still am) not sure about how much I was going to write about it. As I said yesterday we went to Dachau which was the first Concentration Camp used during World War II.

I was quite apprehensive about visiting a camp due to the sensitive nature of the site.

We have been to a lot of national monuments, historical markers, and churches, and one thing has bothered me in almost every place. The lack of respect (at least in my own opinion) awarded to each place. I am not particularly religious, but I am respectful of the meaning it has to others and try to be as unobtrusive as possible. I’m not saying don’t take pictures at all, but when your selfie with Jesus interrupts a person actually using the Church to worship, I want to slap some sense into your dense head.

We met our tour guide Scott at Marienplatz and with 10 others we took a train to just outside Dachau. Scott was super well informed and had answers for just about every question anyone asked. We were allowed to take pictures, but it made me uncomfortable so I didn’t. Everything in Dachau is original except for the barracks which were so filthy and unsanitary they were torn down immediately after US forces liberated the camp. There are replicas on the grounds now.

We spent the majority of our four hours tracing the steps of a prisoner. I learned a lot more about the War and how Dachau played a role in the development of the penal code used in every Concentration camp. Dachau is unique in that it had an SS school next to the premises where recruits were trained and new methods were conceived. We toured the Maintenance building where inmates were stripped of possessions and clothes, shaved (no body hair except eyebrows was allowed), disinfected, showered, and given a number and uniform. From that moment on prisoners had no names and were completely treated as slaves and inconsequential beings to their captors.

We also toured the replica prisoner barracks which show how the prisoners living conditions changed over the course of the war. The prisoner bunker held prisoners of special interest which could mean anyone from clergy men to war criminals. Johann George Elser, the man who attempted to blow up Hitler, was kept there for five years in complete isolation except for the SS agents assigned to torture him. Hitler wanted to make an example of Elser after his presumed victory and ordered him to be kept alive. When it was clear the Allies were winning and the Nazi party was destroyed Hitler sent a message from Berlin to kill Elser. Elser was murdered less than two weeks before US forces took control of Dachau.

Over 41,000 deaths were recorded at Dachau and an untold amount occurred of which their is no documentation. There is a gas chamber and large crematoriums, but there is only documentation of it being used twice although survivors have said it was used many more times. A large number of the deaths came from disease and starvation. If a prisoner survived the random beatings, the lack of proper nutrition, and the disease, the incredibly intense and arduous physical labor required of prisoners daily would likely kill them. The SS literally worked people to death.

They used psychological torture as much as physical. There were perfectly manicured gardens and trees lining the camp, there were shelves and coat hangers for items that didn’t exist and there were promises like “work is freedom” written to taunt prisoners into thinking if they worked hard enough they would be set free. In reality meant the only freedom from Dachau was death.

At the end of the day I am glad I had the tour and the experience. It was incredibly educational and eye opening to hear about how much Germany is doing to confront it’s past.

Dachau, the War, and the millions of lives lost should not be forgotten and if it takes a lifetime of discomfort for people to learn from past atrocities then so be it. As Scott said today, it will be places like Dachau and the other camps, that teach people to look for the similarities and connections in us all and will hopefully lead to a greater peace for all mankind.