Dachau
...g instructed at Dachau also. “In later years, the members of the SS TOTENKOPFVERBANDE (Death’s Head Units) were able, without a thought, to annihilate many hundreds of thousands of people in gas vans and gas chambers.”(Gutman 339) At Dachau was where the real terror system of National Socialism into bloody reality began. The number of Jewish prisoners in Dachau increased all the time. After Kristallnacht, November 9-10, 1938, there were more than 10,000 prisoners from all over Germany in Dachau. People were released if they can prove their intentions for leaving Germany. Most of the prisoners were released within a few months from the camp. During the extermination in 1942, the prisoners of Dachau were transported to other camps in Germany. The other camps were Reich to mass extermination in occupied Poland. During the summer and fall of 1944, more prisoners were brought in mostly from Hungary, but also from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and the USSR. “At the liberation of Dachau and its subsidiary camps in April 1945 about 30 percent of the total number of inmates were Jewish.”(Gutman 340) They also did a number of experiments on prisoners in Dachau. “Himmler provided the opportunity for SS physicians to use prisoners as guinea pigs”(Gutman 341-342). Dr. Sigmund Rascher was one of the men that did the experiments. “The alleged purpose was to examine the effect of sudden loss of pressure or lack of oxygen, such as that experienced by army pilots whose planes were destroyed and who had to make parachute jumps at great heights”(Gutman 342). About 200 inmates were used on these experiments and at least 70 or 80 died. Rascher also did some “freezing experiments”. “Their ostensible object was to determine how pilots shot down at sea who suffered from freezing could be quickly and effectively helped”(Gutman 342). They used 360-400 prisoners for this experiment and about 80 to 90 died. Professor Dr. Claus Schilling opened an experimental station at Dachau. He did an experiment and infected 1,100 inmates with the disease malaria. Th...