Like we were explaining in the other post, Dachau was the first concentration camp created in Germany; so here we are going to talk about a little more about the prisioners. For example, we are going to mention how were the prisioners treated, what kind of jobs they were forced to do, what happend to them in the final days of the war, etc. Keep reading because this is going to have very important and interesting information.
First, it is esential to mention that in Dachau there were different kind of people, this concentration camp was created primaly to keep political opponents of the new chancellor which, as we all know was, Adolfo Hitler. But over the years this camp had many other types of humans. For example they started to bring sexual and ethnic minorities like homosexual, gypsy people, jews, etc.
In early 1937, they use prisoners labor, to began a construction of a large building complex on top of the original camp. The prisoners were forced to do this work, which began with the destruction of the old munitions factory under terrible conditions. Construction was officially completed in mid-August 1938 and the camp remained unchanged until 1945.
Prisoners experienced "selection"; those deemed to be too sick or weak to continue working were sent to the Hartheim "euthanasia" center near Linz, Germany. Several thousand Dachau prisoners were killed at Hartheim. In addition, the Nazis used the firing range and the gallows in the crematoria area as killing places for prisoners.
Also, they conducted medical experiments on prisoners, including high altitude experiments using a decompression chamber, malaria and tuberculosis experiments, hypothermia experiments, and experiments to test new drugs.
Dachau prisoners were used as forced laborers. At first, they were employed in operation of the camps, in various construction projects, and in small handicraft industries established in the camp. Prisoners built roads, worked in gravel pits, and drained marshes.
During the war, forced labor using concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important to German armaments production.In 1944, satellite camps under the administration of Dachau were established near armaments factories throughout southern Germany to increase war production. Dachau only had some 140 subcamps, principaly in southern Bavaria, where prisoners worked almost exclusively in armaments works; and thousands of them were forced to work till their dead.
As allied forces closed in Dachau in the final days ir WW2, conditions for prisioners in the camp worsened. Many prisioners were forced to go on "death marches" to other concentration camps as the Nazi regime tried to evacuate it's prisioners to prevent their liberation by Allied forces.
Those who remained in Dachau faced starvation, disease and brutality from their guards. Many were killed in the final days of the war as the Waffen-SS attempted to destroy the evidence of their crimes
After American troops liberated prisioners from Dachau on April 29, 1945. Many of them were found sick and malnourished. Even after being provided medical assitance, thousands of prisioners died the weeks later due to their weakened state.
References: Kz-Gedenkstatte Dachau La historia del Campo de Concentración de Dachau 1933- 1945: The history of the Dachau concentration camp and its prisioners
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Dachau: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/dachau
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