Train Tracks at Dachau

These freight cars loaded with logs were sitting on the very same railway tracks that once carried Jewish people, political prisoners, and other victims into Dachau Concentration Camp. Dachau was the first camp built by the Nazis, opening in March 1933 — years before the war even started — and remained in operation until American forces liberated it in April 1945. More than 31,000 people died here. Even though this was just a simple photo of timber being transported, standing there looking at those tracks gave me chills.

The Perimeter of Dachau

This gravel walkway ran along the perimeter of Dachau, surrounded by guard towers, barbed wire and concrete walls. From inside the camp, the layers of fencing and regularly spaced towers made clear how completely prisoners were isolated from the outside world.

Prisoner Barracks

This long building is one of the reconstructed living quarters at Dachau. The original wooden barracks were designed to hold around 200 prisoners, but as the camp became overcrowded they often held more than 1,600 people in the same space. Prisoners slept on multi-tiered wooden bunks with almost no bedding, in freezing cold or extreme heat, with little sanitation and rampant disease. Standing in front of this building, it was hard to imagine how anyone survived the conditions inside.

Jewish Memorial

Designed by architect Hermann Zvi Guttmann and dedicated in 1967, the Jewish Memorial honors the Jewish prisoners who suffered and died at Dachau. Its descending walkway leads visitors into a dark, confined space surrounded by sharp metal, while an opening above draws the eye back toward the sky and light. Inside, a small memorial candle burned behind the bars. The Stars of David, heavy iron gate, spikes, darkness and light made this one of the most powerful places I photographed at Dachau.

The Perimeter of Dachau

Dachau was surrounded by layer after layer designed to make escape nearly impossible. A deep ditch and “death strip” separated prisoners from the electrified barbed-wire fence, while armed guards watched from towers along the perimeter. Loudspeakers carried SS orders and announcements throughout the camp. Beyond the fences and walls were thick woods and, on the west side, the River Würm — another natural barrier between the prisoners and the outside world.

The Crematorium at Dachau

The crematorium at Dachau was one of the most difficult places I visited that day. A stone memorial outside reads, “Crematorium Think of How We Died Here.” Inside Barrack X, four large brick ovens were used to cremate prisoners who died from disease, starvation, beatings or execution. The open oven doors, metal stretchers, ash grates and blackened brick made the industrial scale of death horrifyingly tangible.

Someone had placed flowers in front of one of the ovens. Surrounded by all that cold brick and iron, that simple gesture of remembrance felt deeply human and moving.

Prisoner Stories

Inside the camp there is a long wall filled with the personal testimonies of former prisoners. These two short excerpts are just a small sample of the hundreds of stories visitors can read.

One describes the dreaded “Bunker” — a prison within the camp where floggings, hangings, and shootings took place, and where prisoners were locked in standing cells for weeks at a time.

The other comes from a special prisoner who lived with constant uncertainty, never knowing if the next day would bring freedom or a sudden order for liquidation.

Reading their own words made the history feel immediate and personal in a way that buildings and photographs alone never could.

Guard Tower and Barrack Foundations

Nearly all of the original prisoner barracks were destroyed after the war. Only the concrete foundations remain, laid out in long, orderly rows. There were 32 barracks in the main prisoner camp area. These empty outlines give a clear sense of just how densely the camp was packed and how many people once lived here under the constant watch of the guard towers.

The Camp Prison — The Bunker

The long white building was the camp prison, known as the “Bunker,” one of the most feared places at Dachau. Prisoners were held in solitary confinement, tortured and interrogated here, sometimes confined for weeks in tiny standing cells. Inside, door after door lined the long bare hallway, each leading to a solitary cell. Standing there, it was easy to imagine the silence, fear and isolation that filled these corridors.

Inside the Prisoner Barracks

The original accommodation barracks at Dachau were designed to hold about 200 prisoners each, but by the final months of the war as many as 1,600 to 2,000 men were packed into a single building. The originals were demolished in the 1960s, and two were reconstructed so visitors could experience the scale and layout of the prisoners’ living quarters.

Inside were triple-tier wooden bunks where men slept crowded together, often with little more than a thin blanket. A day room contained simple wooden tables and benches, while rows of toilets offered no privacy at all. As the camp became increasingly overcrowded, sanitation deteriorated and disease spread rapidly.

Roll-Call Square

This vast open courtyard is the former Appellplatz, where prisoners stood for morning and evening roll call. Thousands of men lined up in perfect rows, often for an hour or more, in every kind of weather. If the count was wrong they stood even longer. Many who were already weak collapsed and died right here.

Freedom Outside the Fence

A lone cyclist rides along the perimeter of Dachau beside the concrete posts, high-voltage barbed wire and deep ditch that once made escape nearly impossible. I had arrived on a tour bus with a large group of people, so seeing someone simply pedal up on a bicycle felt strangely casual. The contrast was impossible to miss — ordinary freedom of movement alongside the barriers that had once imprisoned thousands of people.

Maintenance Building

This large white structure is the former Maintenance Building, built by the SS in 1937–38. It housed workshops, the laundry, the kitchen, and the “shunting room” where new prisoners were registered, stripped, shaved, and issued uniforms. A large inscription from Himmler once ran along the roof facing the roll-call square. Today the building contains the main historical exhibition. The International Monument stands in the open space in front of it.

International Monument

This bronze sculpture is the heart of the International Monument at Dachau. It was created by Yugoslav sculptor Nandor Glid, a Jewish artist whose own family was murdered in Auschwitz and who himself survived forced labor and later joined the resistance. The monument was inaugurated on September 8, 1968.

The tangled, emaciated human figures are caught in barbed wire, their bodies twisted and stretched in despair. It stands as a powerful symbol of the suffering and dehumanization endured by the prisoners. The dates “1933–1945” mark the years of the camp’s existence. Fresh flowers are almost always left at its base.

Ashes of the Unknown Concentration Camp Prisoner

My final photograph from the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site — and the only one I shot in color.

This stark stone memorial, topped with white pebbles, notes, dried flowers, and a palm frond left by visitors, bears the French inscription CENDRES DU CONCENTRATIONNAIRE INCONNU (“Ashes of the Unknown Concentration Camp Prisoner”). It contains the ashes of an unidentified victim of the camp and stands as a quiet, universal tribute to the nameless dead.

The tradition of placing stones on the memorial echoes Jewish mourning customs and the countless personal remembrances left here.