Dachau Concentration Camp
I sent these photos originally to plead for food and clothing for those who had survived.
I'm kneeling the way the prisoners were forced to do while the SS men shot them through the head. Since the blood stains had to be covered with fresh sand after each execution a new execution place was built nearby. The new one had a wooden grating over a pit and the prisoner was made to kneel so that his head fell on the grating. All that was then needed was some water to wash the blood away. Notice the bullet scars in the embankment.
Here's the new one with the wooden grating and pit. Just a little water removed the evidence.
Not everyone was shot. Some were hung. I'm pointing to the rope scars on the limb of the tree from which many were hung. To destroy the evidence of the murders meant that the bodies had to be destroyed.
This room was filled high from the floor to the ceiling, from wall to wall, with bodies awaiting cremation when the 45th Division arrived at the scene. The place has been scrubbed with disinfectant but still bears the smell of death. Notice the smears from the bodies and the urns for the ashes of the dead.
The crematory - There were 4 ovens. The work was done by prisoners guarded by SS men. The men who worked here were secluded from the other prisoners. Every 90 days they "changed" personnel - the old crew being "liquidated" to destroy witnesses. This was the end of the assembly line.
Human ash I took from one of the 2 barrels FULL in the basement of the crematory. Originally they were intended as fertilizer for a Bavarian farmer's fields.