Special exhibition at The Dachau Memorial
On April 27th, the Dachau Memorial opened the special exhibition "Names not Numbers" - Dutch Political Prisoners in Dachau Concentration Camp. Sydney Weith, 21 year old, talked about former inmate Ernst Sillem, whom she met when she was 16. One could almost feel the close connection with the guest of honor sitting in front of her.
Speeches at the award ceremony
"Late April 1945, a train with nearly 3,000 deportees from the Mühldorf complex, an annex camp of the Dachau concentration camp, stopped in the station of the small town of Poing, only about 20 km from here,
The evacuation of these camps had begun shortly before. As, from Poing on, the railway line was no longer usable, the train remained blocked in Poing station
At first the atmosphere - at least for the local population – was of a deceptive calm.
A passer-by later recalled: "It was a beautiful sunny day and the SS were sitting on the embankment watching the prisoners. At about the same time, here in Munich, began the crucial phase of the "Freiheitsaktion Bayern" ("Bavaria Liberty Action"). The exact link between the insurgency attempt and the events taking place in Poing, is difficult to reconstruct
Any way, in the afternoon of April 27 or 28, the rumor that the war was over, circulated among the SS troops who were watching the train. Because of that, many SS guards left their posts, the doors were opened and the surprised prisoners thought they were free
They began to look for food and for that they also went to the village. The inhabitants later remembered that the SS guards informed them about the presumed end of the war and the release of concentration camp prisoners.
But when after about an hour,in Poing, it was clear that the news of the end of the war were false, the situation degenerated: suddenly, prisoners were no longer considered as being released, but as fugitives."
As long as..
As long as your grandchildren remember your story,
there's hope they need not experience your past.
..