About 2,000 former inmates of Dachau joined with some of their American liberators this week to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi’s first concentration camp.
The camp was liberated April 29, 1945, by the 42nd Rainbow Division of the U.S. Army.
Many of the former inmates in attendance Sunday came to the ceremony dressed in the clothing they wore as prisoners.
Established on March 10, 1933, Dachau, which is near Munich, served as a model and training ground for Nazi camps throughout Europe. It also was the first place that Germans experimented on prisoners.
The exact number of those who passed through Dachau is unknown, as is the exact number of people killed. However, it is known that at least 40,000 prisoners, most of them Jews, died there.
Cardinal Wetter, archbishop of Munich, one of the key speakers at the ceremony, urged the German public to be “politically awake.”
Edmund Stoiber, governor of Bavaria, warned against suppression of the Nazi past. “Not line can be passed over this darkest period in German History,” he said.
Ignatz Bubis, president of Germany’s Jewish community, thanked the American liberators of the camp. In his speech, Bubis described the camp as a symbol of cruelty and barbarism.
“Fifty years after its liberation, Dachau is still a symbol for brutality and wickedness, publicly endorsed by a government,” Bubis said.
Romani Rose, chairman of the central council of Gypsies in Germany, lamented the fact that racist persecution continues today. He urged Germany to become more involved in international human rights.
About 500,000 Gypsies were murdered by the Nazis during World War II.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
