Animal, Nature, and Travel: Dachau Concentration Camp Tales of Select Prisoners Part 2 of 2

Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Tour photos and things learned- part 4. A tragic and heartbreaking time in history of the Holocaust and all those forced to take part.

Tragic Tales About Some of the Dachau Prisoners Part 2 of 2

"The effects shown here are loans from the International Tracing Service (ITS), Bad Arolsen, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, and the Ravensbruck Memorial Site. After liberation, the effects initially remained on the camp grounds. Until 1946, the 'International Information Office', run by the former prisoners, took responsibility for administering and returning them. This task was then transferred to a variety of state agencies until the ITS took over in 1963. A part of the effects were given to the 'Central Committee of Liberated Jews in the U.S. Zone', a Jewish survivor organization founded in Munich. Between 1945 and 1948 the Committee collected documents commemorating the victims of Nazi terror. They took the collected material to Israel and later handed it over to the Yad Vashem memorial."

Every prisoner of the Dachau Concentration Camp has a tragic and heartbreaking tale to tell. These are just a few of those documented stories. In some cases, the tale is accompanied by some of the "EFFECTS" that were forcibly taken from them.

In case you can't read the text on the pictures, I will type them below each picture.

"Passport photo of Francisco Gonzalez Cuadrado and a photo of his sister and a girl (reproductions)"

Francisco Gonzalez Cuadrado (*1913-unknown)
Prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp 1942-1945

"Francisco Gonzalez Cuadrado fought in the Spanish Civil War against the putsch led by Francisco Franco. It may be assumed that the fled to France to escape political persecution following the victory of Franco's Nationalist forces. After France came under German occupatoin, numerous 'Spanish fighters' were imprisoned as POWs. This is presumably what happened to Gonzalez Cuadrado, who from 1940 was imprisoned in the Altengrabow POW camp. In April 1941 he was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, from where he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp in November 1942."

"The ghost is me
'The seamstress', prisoner account by Sara Tuvel Bernstein (1944/45 in Dachau), 1998 excerpt"

"One day as I was on my way to one of the corners of the courtyard, I prepared even to dig out worms if I couldn't find any grass, I passed by a window. I was suddenly startled ... An old shriveled up lady stared out at me from her deep set eyes -- a bony phantom ... I hastily looked around to see who this figure was, this head on a stalk that sent more fear through me than anything I had ever seen in my life. "That's me", I realized. "This ghost is me ... "

Death of the prisoner Dr. Krediet, February 21 1945
Secret journal entry by Nico Rost (1944-45 in Dachau)
February 21, 1945 (excerpt)

"Dr. Krediet died last night. The Dutch were particularly downtrodden. He was so well liked, especially by those who had arrived with him from Natzweiler. As soon as the epidemic broke out, he offered his assistance - voluntarily.

And he was the only doctor here who was familiar with typhus fever and had experience in fighting it. All day and every day he was in the typhus barracks, sat on the sides of the beds, crept between the lowered blankets. He knew that he would be infected himself one day, but he wanted to help as much and as long as he could. He was a true hero! Never thinking at all of himself, sacrificing himself and giving his life to save the lives of others."

"Float wagon in Muhldorf am Inn, 1936

For a constant complainer
This is the right place to be
If he doesn't quiet down here
then its off to Dachau with him

Whoever criticized the Nazi regime risked imprisonment in a concentration camp."

Nikolai Owsjanikow (*1899-unknown)
Prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp 1944

"The Soviet railroad worker Nikolai Owsjanikow was deported to Munich to perform forced labor. After resisting the repressive working discipline enforced by the Nazi regime, the State Police Munich placed him in protective custody in February 1944. He was sent first to the Dachau concentration camp and transferred a month later to the Natzweiler concentration camp. At the Markirch subcamp the SS deployed him in preparatory excavation work of a railway tunnel for the armaments production of the BMW plant."

Hans Adlhack (1884-1945)

"The workers' secretary of the Christian trade unions in Augsburg and Reichstag representative of the Bavarian People's Party, Hans Adlhoch, was arrested a number of times beginning in 1933, for his political opposition. He was sent to the Dachau concentration camp in April 1935 for six months after publicly expressing his political position.

He was again sent to Dachau in August 1944 as part of the many arrests made during 'Operation Storm'. Completely weakened from the death march at the end of April 1945, Hans Adlhoch died just a few days after the liberation."

Anton Jez
geb. 1925

"In 1942, still a school pupil, Anton Jez joined a national liberation movement which fought first against the Italian and then later against the German occupation of Slovenia. In February 1944 he was arrested by the local police and after spending two months in prison was handed over to the Germans. They deported him to Dachau in April 1944. He was subjected to forced labor in the Neuaubing, Germering and Uberlingen subcamps. After liberation, Anton Jez returned to Ljubljana. He undertook all that he could to endure that the events which took place during the construction of the Goldbach tunnel should not be forgotten."

Josef Capek (1887-1945)

"The popular painter and journalist, Joseph Capek, brother of the famous writer Karel Capek, belonged to the group of Czech hostages detained in the Dachau concentration camp for a few weeks in September 1939. Josef Capek was handed over to the Buchenwald concentration camp at the end of September 1939 and in June 1942 to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. In February 1945 he was transferred to Bergen-Belsen, where he died from typhoid at the beginning of April."

Ludwig Gohring (1910-1999)

"As a member of the Communist Youth League in Nuremberg, Gohring was involved in summer 1933 in producing illegal newspapers. He was arrested in mid-August 1933 and severely maltreated in the torture cellars of the Nuremberg SA. He was sent to the Dachau concentration camp and spent 14 months in solitary confinement int he bunker. In November 1934 a court sentenced him to two years imprisonment for resistance activities. After he served his sentence, Ludwig Gohring was against sent to Dachau. In 1944 he was brought to the Neuengamme concentration camp and conscripted into the SS punishment unit 'Dirlewanger'. He was taken prisoner of war and returned to Nuremberg in 1945."

Werner Cahnmann (geb. 1902)

Prisoner account of Werner Cahnmann (1938 in the Dachau concentration camp) on arriving at Dachau (excerpt)

"Every sign of weakness was naturally fatal. Many elderly or sick men stumbled and collapsed. At best they were kicked and dragged up; at worst they were carried away, never to be seen again. Signs of compassion, such as supporting a man who was obviously on the verge of collapsing, were punished. At roll call the smallest movement while standing at attention was pretense for a beating around the head and blows, if not for something much worse."

"With a few exceptions, until the final phrase of the war there were only male prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp. Beginning in summer 1944, the SS deported about 7,000 mostly Jewish women to the subcamps to do forced labor. Their work tasks included hard field and construction work, digging out trenches, factory work, clearing up operations and kitchen duty. More women arrived in the main camp with the evacuation transports in spring 1945 and many of these were forced on death marches just shortly before liberation. Women were subjected to the same conditions of imprisonment as men. But women had also to bear the degradations of sexual violence, of constant disrobing and examinations of work fitness and of poor hygiene. Kindness and support were more frequent, persistent and intense among the female prisoners."

A prisoner's account of the work of women in the Muhidorf subcamp:

impossible to keep up:

"In the summer of 1944 ... when I had to collect the women's personal possessions, I was confronted with a terrifying sight. Hollowed cheeks, pale figures ... shaved heads ... swaying between the trucks and the building material loading site 700 meters away, each carrying a heavy cement sack on her back ... these women had to accomplish the same amount as the men. Each one had to load or unload 100 cement sacks per day ... given the poor hygiene and nourishment this work goal was impossible to keep up ..."

Jewish women from Hungary with their babies in the Dachau concentration camp after liberation:

Some women were already pregnant when they were deported in 1944. The SS forced them to abort. Only in the final months did they allow women to give birth to their children."

"Female prisoners arranged according to nationality, 1943-1945, based on entries in the admissions register:

3,774 Ungarn
1,348 Polen
203 Niederlande
176 Jugoslawien
97 Italien
59 Deutsches Reich
46 Litauen
37 Belgien
33 Tschechoslowakei
32 Frankreich
19 Sowjetunion
10 Griechenland
7 Lettland
6 Rumanien
3 San Salvador
3 Schweiz
2 Bulgarien
1 Irak
1 Turkei
3 Staatenios"

A similar story to "This ghost is me" was shared by our tour guide. He explained that upon liberation, the U.S. Army requested a 14-year-old youth to show them around. The boy happened to see his reflection in a glass or window. Having no concept that this was his very self he was viewing, he truly thought it was the devil coming after him. He fell backward and crashed through another window to the ground in his attempt to escape this fiend.

So very sad and tragic!

Please visit these other blog posts about the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Tour. Here are the links. They will each open up in a new window.