The opening of one such camp had occurred on March 22, 1933, its existence revealed at a press conference held by a thirty-two-year-old former chicken farmer turned commander of the Munich police, Heinrich Himmler. The camp occupied an old munitions factory a brief train ride from Munich, just outside the charming village of Dachau, and now housed hundreds of prisoners, possibly thousands—no one knew—most arrested not on specific charges but rather for “protective custody.” These were not Jews, not yet, but communists and members of the liberal Social Democratic Party, all held in conditions
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