DACHAU, BAVARIA, GERMANY Dachau was the first regular concentration camp of the Nazi regime. The camp was opened on March 22, 1933, near Munich, and remained in operation throughout Nazi rule until the end of the war. Originally, it primarily held political opponents of the regime, but later also Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and other groups persecuted by the Nazis.
Dachau gradually became a model for the entire system of Nazi concentration camps and at the same time a training center for SS units that subsequently operated in other camps as well. Prisoners were subjected to brutal conditions, forced labor, starvation, violence, and medical experiments. More than 200,000 people passed through the main camp and its approximately 140 subcamps between 1933 and 1945. According to historians, at least 40,000 prisoners died.
When American forces liberated the camp on April 29, 1945, soldiers found thousands of starving prisoners as well as dozens of railroad cars filled with dead bodies. Period film footage recorded shortly after the liberation therefore captures not only the end of the camp’s existence, but also direct evidence of the scale of Nazi crimes.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp
