Dachau was the first concentration camp established in Nazi Germany - the camp was opened on March 22, 1933. The first inmates were primarily political prisoners, Social Democrats, Communists, trade unionists, habitual criminals, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses.

KZ Dachau served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi concentration camps that followed. Its basic organization, camp layout as well as the plan for the buildings were developed by Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in KZ Dachau, more than 25,000 prisoners are believed to have died in the camp and almost another 10,000 in its subcamps. (Material licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License from Wikipedia).

In 1933 approximately nine million Jews lived in the countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed by the SS Men. The Holocaust was the systematic annihilation of six million Jews.

The number of children killed during the Holocaust is not fathomable and full statistics for the tragic fate of children who died will never be known. Estimates range as high as 1.5 million murdered children. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of institutionalized children.

- Louis Bülow