Bavarian premier inaugurates concentration camp visitor centre

Apr 30, 2009, 15:36 GMT

Berlin - Bavarian Premier Horst Seehofer opened a new visitor centre at the site of Dachau concentration camp near Munich on Thursday, with words of warning against extremism and racism.

'We are responsible that inhuman ideologies, hatred of foreigners and antisemitism can never again gain a foothold in Germany,' Seehofer said at the opening ceremony, one day after the 64th anniversary of the camp's liberation at the end of World War II.

'This site in Dachau makes visible the things that can happen if we disregard elemental values of our society,' Seehofer said, adding that the concentration camp served as a reminder of the darkest chapter of Germany's history.

The Bavarian premier made it clear that the responsibility of processing the crimes of Nazi Germany could never be absolved.

'The suffering that people experienced here is simply unfathomable,' Seehofer said.

Pieter Dietz de Loos, the President of the International Committee of Dachau, which unites former prisoners and their descendants, said the building was a 'link between the past, the present and the future.'

The new visitor centre, built at a cost of roughly 3.8 million euros (5 million dollars), is designed as the initial reception point for roughly 800,000 people who visit Dachau annually, more than any other former German concentration camp site.

The Nazis erected their first permanent concentration camp in the town, 20 kilometres northwest of Munich, 76 years ago. The first prisoners arrived at Dachau in March 1933, just weeks after Hitler rose to power.

While 32,000 deaths are documented on the site, historians think more than 43,000 prisoners could have been murdered, as not all executions were recorded.

Dachau concentration camp was liberated by US troops on April 29, 1945, nine days before the end of World War II.

The opening of the visitor centre marked the completion of renovation works which started in 1995.