Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site
Alte Römerstraße 75, Dachau, DEU
The Dachau Concentration Camp was opened by Adolf Hitler's Nazi government in 1933, and served as a model for later concentration camps. Today, the camp is a memorial to the more than 32,000 people who died and the more than 200,000 who were imprisoned there during the Nazi regime. The memorial was established as a site of memory and education in 1965, 20 years after Dachau was liberated by American troops.
The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site is most often visited on half- or full-day trips from Munich. Visitors to the memorial site can expect to see the former compound (now an exhibition center), and learn about Europe in World War II, the Holocaust, and the violence that took place at Dachau. Whether seen independently or on a guided private or small-group tour from Munich, the guard houses and administration buildings, reconstructed barracks, cells, and crematorium offer ample opportunity for reflection.
Visiting the Dachau memorial is an intense experience, and appropriate solemnity and respect are required on the grounds.
While it's free to visit the memorial, booking an audio guide or a group or private tour allows for added insight and context from a tour guide.
The site does not offer luggage storage.
Dachau is generally wheelchair accessible, although some of the grounds are unpaved and some buildings do not have dedicated wheelchair entrances.
Some of the exhibits may not be appropriate for kids under 12; it's recommended that kids visit with an adult.
Dachau is 17 miles (28 kilometers) northwest of Munich. By public transportation, take the S2 train from Munich's Central Station to Dachau Bahnhof, then transfer to bus 726 toward Saubachsiedlung and get off at KZ-Gedenkstätte, the entrance of the memorial site. Parking fees apply from March to October.
The site is open daily from morning to early evening year-round, aside from Christmas Eve (December 24). While some of the exhibits are indoors, much of the site is outdoors, and visited more frequently in the warmer months. The memorial tends to be busiest around noon.
Set in what was once a maintenance building, Dachau's main permanent exhibition documents the former Nazi concentration camp's horrific history and sheds light on the lives of the site's prisoners with firsthand accounts, biographies, and artifacts. Elsewhere on the Dachau grounds are exhibits in other original buildings displaying bunkers, model barracks, a crematorium, and a gas chamber, although evidence indicates that the gas chamber was never used to murder prisoners.
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