Nice commemoration. On Holocaust Remembrance Day, politicians across the country once again made depressing speeches, called for remembrance and laid wreaths. An important day, but now it’s over. Business as usual can be expected on the other 364 days of the year – for example for the Dachau concentration camp memorial. With one million visitors a year, it is the most important in Germany. But the Free State of Bavaria lets them fall apart, despite all commitments to the politics of remembrance. Now even the central memorial on the site of the former concentration camp is endangered: the crematorium. The historic building from 1942 was provisionally secured in January. But if there is a heavy snow load or a storm, it has to be closed to visitors because there is a risk of it collapsing. This casts a shadow over the beautiful appearance of the commemorative speeches.
Dachau District Administrator Stefan Löwl (CSU) posted on Facebook on Thursday on the day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism: “In Dachau, the site of the first National Socialist concentration camp, we are commemorating the suffering and death of all the victims of these dark years together today; . .. also with a clear commitment and mission for today and tomorrow.” Order for whom? If so, then for his own party, which is responsible for government, the CSU, and its coalition partner Freie Wahler. They provide the responsible Minister of Education, Michael Piazolo. In January two years ago, the politician announced a large memorial concept for Bavaria with a volume of 100 million euros. Dachau should also be given plenty of thought – at least what is left of it. It’s not just the crematorium: the international memorial on the former roll call area has cracks and is in danger of tipping over. The two reconstructed prisoner barracks are in danger of collapsing and the “herb garden”, the former SS plantation, has been decaying for decades.
Even the word “priority list” makes people jump in Dachau
Vice President of the State Parliament Karl Freller (CSU), director of the Bavarian Memorials Foundation, explained in an interview with the SZ a few weeks ago that everything was on the way. The project applications from the individual actors, such as the Dachau and Flossenbürg memorials or the documentation center at Obersalzberg, flow together in Piazolo’s ministry and are sorted according to priority. The applications for project-related financial support from the federal government. From many years of experience, Freller himself knows how arduous the path is. He and memorial director Gabriele Hammermann fought for more than five years just to renew the parking lot of the Dachau memorial, a crater landscape that is unacceptable to visitors. Even the word “priority list” makes people in Dachau wince who are involved in civil society organizations against forgetting. It’s not just a question of money – after all, if you follow the political speeches on memorial days, memory should have priority. According to the dpa news agency, Bavaria’s Anti-Semitism Commissioner Ludwig Spaenle (CSU) advocated visits to concentration camp memorials on Holocaust Remembrance Day. This is “the most effective way to make young people aware of the inhuman persecution and factory murder of Jews, Sinti and Roma in 2022.”
On March 22, 1933, the Nazi regime opened one of the first concentration camps in Dachau. Up until the liberation on April 29, 1945, more than 200,000 prisoners from over 40 nations were imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp and its satellite camps. At least 41,500 people died there of starvation, disease, torture, murder and the consequences of their concentration camp imprisonment. After the first crematorium with one incinerator was no longer sufficient because more and more prisoners were dying in the camp, the SS had a new crematorium with four incinerators, “Barrack X”, built in the spring of 1942. The crematorium was in the SS camp; some concentration camp prisoners were forced to burn the dead. Many prisoners were also hanged or shot in the crematorium area, mostly members of resistance organizations. The place is now also a cemetery. The “Path of Death” takes visitors to the memorial sites past the execution sites near the crematorium and ash graves. The ashes of many prisoners are buried in these graves.
On December 23, the crematorium had to be closed for almost two weeks
Memorial director Gabriele Hammermann is in close contact with the Freising building authority, which regularly inspects the historic buildings on the site. As she explained to the SZ, there were already complaints in 2018. “Then an attempt was made to solve the static problems with as little intervention as possible in the original substance. Unfortunately, the current inspection has shown that the condition has deteriorated and the building has to be closed for the time being.” On December 23, the crematorium had to be closed for almost two weeks. The building authority put in pillars. The statics are constantly checked, because it is only an emergency backup. Ten days ago, the central memorial on the site was reopened, but there is a risk of it being closed again in the event of heavy snow loads or a violent storm.
The crematorium – like the entire building stock on the site – is a listed building. The challenge, explains historian Hammermann, lies in preserving the historical building fabric, which as a stone contemporary witness reports on the crimes of the National Socialists, as best as possible. You cannot simply replace defective building fabric. Reconstructions certainly do not represent an adequate solution, complex solutions are required – always under the maxim of preserving the original building fabric as authentically as possible for future generations. The Freising building authority and the memorial are now working together on a concept to secure the listed building in the long term.
Not only Dachau has this problem: the historic buildings of former concentration camps inevitably fall into disrepair after such a long time. As Hammermann emphasizes, significantly more money will be needed for building maintenance in all memorial sites in Germany in the future. And: It has to be done quickly – otherwise Heinrich Junker, the former district administrator and member of the state parliament in Dachau, would still be able to claim success. In 1955 he called for the crematorium to be demolished, but international protests failed. It did not detract from his political career. Heinrich Junker, he was also from the CSU, rose to become the Bavarian Minister of the Interior.