March 22 1933 – 24 Adar 5693
Construction work was completed in Dachau, the Nazis’ first concentration camp, just 51 days after their election victory in Germany. No one could have imagined the terrors of the Holocaust lying ahead, and even the Nazis were still far from their ultimate decision to execute a “final solution” to the “Jewish problem.” Heinrich Himmler, Munich chief of police, officially described the camp as “the first concentration camp for political prisoners,” but the place was soon filled with inmates of all kinds. Though Jews were the majority of prisoners, it was used for homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and Sinti gypsies as well as criminals, all of whom provided forced labor for a munitions factory on the site.
Dachau was also used as an S.S. guards’ training camp. Equipped with gas-chambers that were never actually activated, the camp was essentially a forced labor facility whose appalling conditions caused the death of many of its inmates. A crematorium on site was used to incinerate their bodies, as well as those of thousands of prisoners (including prisoners of war) executed nearby. Estimates suggest that of the 200,000 prisoners who passed through Dachau over the twelve years of its existence, approximately 30,000 perished.