Dachau was the first concentration camp ever made .It was made in 1933.Dachau started out as a labor camp, later as time went on it turned into a death camp.
The first people who were sent to Dachau were people who had went against their countries government also known as political prisoners .Nearly one-third of the prisoners were Jews. there were thousands of people killed at Dachau but there were no massive killings like the death marches. The prisoner were killed by starvation, torture, medical experiments, and diseases. 
 
At Dachau they would classify their prisoners by having them wear these badges.  These are the badges they would wear:

 
 
When they built Dachau in 1933 they built five gas chambers in Baracke X. Later they also made four more gas chambers located on the south side of the southern side of the building. These four gas chambers were precisely  made and constructed to be able to release the gas into the chamber and clean it when it was done. These four new gas chambers were used to kill the lice-borne typhus on the clothing, bedding, and blankets of the prisoners. Too much Zyklon B was being used to kill the lice, so they made many small heat able chambers to be used with the 200 gram tin of Zyklon B. Heating the chambers to over thirty degrees centigrade helped the gas to evaporate from the grains more quickly and shortened the time to kill the lice to one hour. They connected the chambers where they would kill the lice to the chambers where they would kill people. Prisoners would walk through the disinfecting chamber and the lice on them and their clothes would be killed. Then they would take their clothes off and walk into the other chambers where it looked like they were going to take showers because of the fake shower heads on the ceiling ,but the shower heads would let out gas and kill them. It took only 0.3 grams of hydrogen cyanide per cubic meter to kill prisoners.

Dachau Gas Chambers

The first ovens to get rid of dead bodies at Dachau were built in 1940. They were located on the northwest corner of the camp. These ovens were called crematoriums . Crematoriums were kept in a wooden shed and were surrounded by trees. It is hard to see these crematoriums from the camp. The site is sealed off by the camp wall, a barbed wire fence , and a large ditch with running water. The crematoriums were designed to burn one body at a time. These crematoriums had long cycles to go through which took up a lot of time, so they made new ovens called incinerators. New bodies could be fed through incinerators as the old ovens were consumed. The cost of the new ovens were a lot cheaper and more affective. these new ovens could hold up to 7 or 8 bodies at a time.

Dachau Crematoriums

 

Dr. Sigmund Rascher tested their combat gasses on prisoners at Dachau , and would also but prisoners in cold water till they would die. Dr. Sigmund did high altitude experiments hoping to find a cure for malaria. He also tried to make seawater drinkable and experimented with prisoners to see if he could find a way to stop bleeding. From these experiments nearly 1,100 prisoners were killed and infected with diseases.  
 
There were a total of 206,206 prisoners that had been entered into Dachau by 1945, and 31,591 of those prisoners had been killed. Survivor William Wiess escaped from Belzec, Janowska, Gestgo prison in Lvov, Auschwitz, and he survived a 50- mile death march out of Auschwitz in the winter of January of 1945, and he finally ended up in Dachau. William Wiesses whole family died in holocaust. His parents, grand parent, two sisters, ten aunts, ten uncles, and forty cousins and he was the only survivor. Dachau survivor John Ciardi  said, '' with some surprise at first-that strangers couldn't tell he had died once.'' 
 
Dachau was liberated by US Seventh Army on April 29, 1945 one week before the end of WWII In Europe. The soldiers first impressions where that it was ''chaos''. there were thousands of skeletons in the yard climbing on each other, in trees, and waving little rags, it was completely out of control. Nazis were in their towers but were no longer guards. They had been ordered to surrender. American soldiers took over Dachau and 32,000 prisoners were set free. The Americans rounded up Nazis and their guard dogs and executed them. There were 300 ss guards that were killed. Dachau remains to this day and can be visited. 
   
Sawyor Askren

7th Holocaust project

Rossville Jr. High - April 2005

Bibliography