This short ebook is designed to fulfill two functions. Firstly, to act as a guide to some of the important aspects of the infamous Dachau Concentration Camp and secondly to highlight and explain the significance of the main memorials that now stand on the grounds of the former concentration camp. Hundreds of thousands of people from all continents visit Dachau Memorial Site each year and any visitor to the Memorial Site will find that the bookshop stocks two publications worthy of particular mention, both deal at length with the history of the former concentration camp; Stanislav Zamecnik's outstanding, That Was Dachau and the superb Catalogue for the Exhibition: The Dachau Concentration Camp edited by Barbara Distel.
Notwithstanding, there is little, recently written and reasonably priced literature which deals in a clear and concise manner with key themes. The original booklet and now the ebook were written in response to questions that were often raised when the author conducted the `open tour' of the Memorial Site. Visitors were keen to understand who was imprisoned and why, they were curious to know how prisoners arrived and the procedure of being processed into `protective custody' at the concentration camp. Furthermore, they wanted to know the significance of the religious and non-denominational memorials and the importance of Baracke X.
The ebook is designed to address these themes and to be used either as an aid when making a visit to the Memorial Site or it can be read independently as a complement to the existing literature. It is written in an accessible style with accounts of former prisoners used to illustrate the conditions which existed within the concentration camp.
Plate 1: The Museum Building (contemporary photograph)