SIXTY-FIVE years ago on April 29th, 1945, the US 42nd Rainbow Division liberated Dachau concentration camp. The division was fighting its way into Munich along the autobahn running west of the city when some of its troops entered the small town of Dachau. What they found there almost defies description.
Irishman Edward “Teddy” Dixon from Ravenhill in Belfast was one of the first soldiers of the Rainbow Division to fight his way into the camp at Dachau that afternoon. Teddy, who celebrated his 90th birthday last month tells the story in minimalist fashion. His short, matter of fact sentences convey something of the horror he witnessed in the concentration camp at Dachau.
“We climbed on to a tank and drove into Dachau. Then we went on foot and got into a firefight with about 40 SS troops. About two-thirds of them were killed. It lasted about 30 minutes. Then we got into what turned out to be the camp. I went in the front gate. The one with the sign on it. We had not expected anything like it. I thought to myself, this is hell. We are in hell.”
After months of sustained combat, the Rainbow Division were battle-hardened. They had fought from the south of France through the Siegfried Line into Germany where, according to Teddy, “There was plenty of fighting, plenty of resistance. A lot of it was fanatical”.
Nothing, however, had prepared the troops for what they found in the concentration camp at Dachau. There, under groves of poplar trees they discovered more than 60,000 emaciated prisoners – the dead and dying – crammed into a camp designed to hold just 5,000 inmates. They also discovered the torture chambers, execution areas, gas chambers and crematoria of Dachau.
The impact on Teddy was profound. “I lost track of time then. I couldn’t tell you what time it was. The prisoners went wild when we entered the camp. We had to fire shots over their heads to stop them stampeding. They were nearly all men, but then I noticed small boys there too and I could not comprehend how human beings could inflict such cruelty. The boys were hiding among stacks of dead bodies, piled high.
“And they just wanted to touch us, hug us, kiss us. The smell, the stench of death was unbearable. Even now, 65 years later, I sometimes think I can smell it. It catches me out. It still frightens me.”
Today, Dachau is a quiet leafy suburb of Munich, 20 minutes from the city centre. A feeder bus, the 726, takes passengers from the train station to the Dachau memorial site. As the 726 winds its way through Dachau, the driver calls out each bus-stop in lilting German. " Banhof" is followed by "John F Kennedy Strasse" and so on. In the spring sunshine, Dachau is a pretty town with well kept houses and gardens set among mature trees. In the midst of one such development, among houses with balconies, wooden decking and barbecues, the bus comes to a halt. At this stop, the driver simply announces "Concentration Camp".
The camp at Dachau is partially restored and is preserved as a memorial to the tens of thousands of Jews, Russians, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals and political prisoners – many of whom were German – that were systematically murdered by the Nazis. The Jourhaus or entrance gate remains exactly as it was when Teddy Dixon entered the camp 65 years ago under the infamous wrought iron sign " Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work Sets You Free".
The memorial is always busy. Most German school children visit the camp at least once during their education.
Standing in the gas chamber, one teacher asks his class of boys and girls " Was war in der dusche?" or "What was in the showers?" A 15-year-old girl adjusts her iPod and calls out, " Gaz. Zyklon B". The design features of the crematoria are disturbing. The neat brickwork and rustic architectural flourishes of the buildings are in stark visual contrast to the horror enacted within them. Some details however, such as the meat-hooks suspended in front of the ovens – where victims were hung, sometimes alive, before being manhandled into the furnaces – bear more explicit testimony to the nightmare that was Dachau.
For me, the most disturbing feature of the memorial is in the Schubraumor "shunt room" where prisoners were processed on admission to the camp. One glass case contains hundreds of confiscated photographs of Jewish families. The eyes and smiling faces of the children in particular speak out across the decades of unbearable separation, unspeakable loss. There is also the visceral realisation that the thousands of innocent children framed within these photographs would soon follow their fathers and mothers into death camps all over Germany and central Europe.
Teddy will visit Dachau once more on April 29th – on the 65th anniversary of the day he liberated it. He is planning to meet a Polish survivor whose life he saved that day.
Teddy says, “We must never forget what was done to the Jewish people in Dachau. And Irish people from all traditions, all sides, would do well to think about where hatred leads us. What I learned from the war is to let people live in peace. We need to respect and love one another. Above all, we need to live and let live.”