For the most part the National Socialist concentration
camps have been exhaustively researched and depicted. The Dachauer Hefte, published from 1985 to 2010 as a periodical, played
a salient role in research studies on the concentration camps. But beyond the
formal definition of the concentration camp as a place of imprisonment under
the authority of the Concentration Camps Inspectorate in Oranienburg or the SS
Main Economic and Administration Office in Berlin, countless other camps of
coercion existed where Nazi terror was implemented in the same or in similar
fashion and the prisoners certainly felt them to be “concentration camps”. This
number includes some 200 “labor reeducation camps”, “police detainment camps”
or “extended police prisons” under regional Gestapo authority, “forced labor
camps for Jews”, “gypsy camps”, ghettos and other sites of imprisonment.

The essays collected in this volume examine problems
of this camp world under German rule, map out the landscape of terror, and
point out desiderate in research.

The exhibition and this accompanying publication are
based on the unique stock of miniature drawings by the Slovenian Vlasto Kopàč
which he completed secretly during his imprisonment in the Dachau concentration
camp. With brutal honesty he captured the everyday routine of camp life and
portrayed his fellow prisoners on small fragments of paper.

The catalogue contains all of these drawings, number
almost 80, in premium quality reproductions and provides background information
on the life of Vlasto Kopàč.

The catalogue is rounded off by essays on the
Slovenian group of prisoners in the Dachau concentration camp, the Dachau
Trials in postwar Yugoslavia and the collection of artistic works from
concentration camps and prisoners in the Museum for Modern History in Ljubljana

The fact that many
Nazi criminals were able to pursue carriers following the collapse of the Third
Reich is one of the sore points of German postwar society. As investigations
into their past gathered pace towards the end of the 1950s, they presented
themselves as completely integrated and socially reestablished citizens to the
investigating authorities. Up until now this scandal has only been explored
summarily and structurally. In contrast Christina Ullrich takes up the specific
biographies of mid-level SS leaders who were directly involved in the
Holocaust. Her prime concern here is not the crimes committed before 1945 but
the postwar careers and biographies of the offenders – until their court
trials. The main question here is how these offenders were integrated into
society and how they organized their new careers. Drawing on 19 typical
biographies she identifies a pattern behind the integration of Nazi offenders
which could well serve as a model for other cases

Can Dachau ever again be a hometown? Can Germany ever
again be a homeland? My answer is: yes, they can. But they can only be so if we
never cease telling what happened…

Norbert Göttler grew up in the immediate
vicinity of the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site and still lives there
today. His stories and memories revolve around this site of terror. He depicts
victims, perpetrators, and fellow travelers, including in his own family
history.