Dachau tour guide recommendation?
 

We'll be visiting Munich in late September and would like to visit the Dachau memorial as a side trip. Are there any tour guides/companies that you would recommend? Right now, I'm considering Munich Walks.

I know that you can visit the site on your own, but I'm thinking that a tour guide would be helpful. Is that the case? Thanks for your help.
Sarah

I'm not sure about guided tours but I visited Dachau a couple of years ago and had a very sobering walk around by myself.

There are information boards describing the various sights and the write-ups describing the attrocious medical experiments that were carried out on people at the facility are truly horrifying. There is also a brochure with additional information (which I still have a copy of) and a short film you can watch while there.

So in short, I really don't think you will need a guide. We spent a good two to three hours looking around and I will never forget my visit.

I believe you can also rent an audio tour at the camp.

My best advice to you is do lots of research before you go. You may find out things not on the regular tour.

Other than that, there is plenty of information to guide you at the camp.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a DO NOT MISS. We went in 2002, and every time I start thinking about it, I still tear up. Very moving experience.

Curious

We went a couple of years ago and rented the audio headphones. I believe there are tours available, but we preferred walking at our own pace.

If you generally like tour guides and groups, then Munich walks would be a good choice. Dachau is also a good place to be alone with your thoughts and feel the void of humanity.

Thanks for all of your quick responses. Touring on our own seems to make more sense now. I suspect that my mother-in-law and I will have rather emotional reactions, so maybe its best to be on our own.

Do you have any recommendations for places to learn more about Dachau? The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial website (http://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.d...tent/index.htm) has a good overview - any other books, sites that would be helpful? Thanks again.

Sarah

Unfortunately I think you may find the whole thing somewhat eerily familiar and that will not require a guide.

Be prepared for some graphic photos and be even more prepared to suddenly realize you are standing in the very room where those photos were taken.

I suggest you view the introductory movie first. Check a guide book to see when it is shown in English. I don't think you'll need a guide. It's such a sobering experience.

For research, just do a Google search on Dachau. There is a lot of information available. If you search thoroughly, you will find articles by some of the US Army Soldiers that liberated Dachau. You won't believe what they have to say, and some of it won't be included in the visit, believe me. Pay special attention to the train tracks as you enter the camp. With the proper research this will be quite a jolt.

I'm done.

Curious

Hi sgt97,
My son and I went last week. We rented a hand-held which gives you a general overview of each building and position in the walled area as you walk around; it will also tell more detailed information of certain areas and you can hear from survivors as well if you like. Inside the museum, it walked me from panel to panel at one point. I really don't think that a live guide is going to give you any more information than the hand-held.

There are enough signs and markings that a guide is not at all necessary. It's painfully obvious.

The striking thing about Dachau is that the town is so charming. It is very difficult on the trip from the train station on the bus to the camp to imagine the terrible crimes against humanity that occurred in this little town. I expected a drab ugly town I guess.

Larry J

From one who has visited 11 "Koncentration" sites, I must say that a guide is not necessary nor recommended for all the reasons stated above.

Larry..the very fact that the camp is surrounded by the pretty town gives one pause as to why more useful information did not leak out in the 30's and 40's. All intelligence reports gave short shrift to Dachau.

There was less known about the Dachau camp than most of the others in Poland, Austria and Germany proper.

Treblinka, 75 miles northeast of Warsaw is and was the most isolated...but even so, the fires could be seen and smelled for many miles encompassing it. Only after the revolt of late '44 did the outside world get an inkling as to the "death camp nature" of Treblinka.
Same can be said for Sobibor on the River Bug in today's Eastern Poland

The town of Oswiecim (Auschwitz)was in a major industrial region and once again, the townspeople leaked out only very sparse information as to the horrendous goings-on.

But let's not make this post a thread for this discussion which can go on ad infintum.

Stu T.