Concentration Camp Visit

From Prague the easiest reached contrentration camp is Theresienstadt, presently Terezin. It's a few kilometres from Litomerice, which can easily be reached by train from Prague.

Terezin is a 45 minute trip outside Prague. It was the family camp used for propaganda purposes, to show the Red Cross and in videos. I went with a tour group from Prague.

If you fly into Munich, you can take the train to Dachau Stadt and then a bus to Dachau itself. This link will help you figure out the best way for you.
https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/directions.html

A sample itinerary would be to take the S1 train from Munich It will take a little over an hour each way.

München Flughafen Terminal dep 15:51 S 1 S-Bahn Direction: München Ost
München-Laim arr 16:28
Transfer time 19 min.

München-Laim dep 16:47 S 2 S-Bahn Direction: Altomünster
Dachau Stadt arr 17:06

Thank everyone for all your responses. I think we're leaning toward Munich with a side trip to Dachau so the travel details will be very helpful. We wanted to visit one of the major camps and since Auschwitz was so far away, Dachau would be our second choice. Thanks again!

I'm late getting into the discussion but I was going to suggest Dachau, as that will be an easy option. You can either travel there on your own or take a guided tour. Have a look at Radius Tours - http://radiustours.com/en/english-tours/dachau-concentration-camp-memorial.html

Dachau was the first of the camps, and it provides a good view on how the others operated.

I have visited both camps. It is important to be reminded of such evil.

Dachau was a concentration camp, not set up for mass extermination of people. I strongly recommend Auschwitz, which was the largest of the extermination camps.

Also, if you go to Poland, you can spend a day in Krakow, which is a very nice city, virtually undamaged in WWII.

I would choose Auschwitz over Dachau. I visited when spending a long weekend in Krakow, we took a day trip there via bus and managed to spend several sobering hours there before returning later in the afternoon.

Krakow itself is certainly worthy of a stay in its own right and I would probably choose it over Munich.

There is no substitute for Florence. But I want to suggest that you make sure you understand how much distance you are going to cover in order to tick certain boxes. Since your dughter might visit Europe many times in the future, you could instead visit Berlin and Dresden for more art than you can have time to see, visit historic Weimar and see the Buchenwald camp, and then move to nearby Prague, partly by boat if preferred.

Some years ago, we did Berlin, Prague, and Budapest in two weeks, and that was quite enough time on local transport. Another trip was just Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Dessau, Weimar, Erfurt, Quedlinburg.

Such wonderful suggestions! Thank everybody for taking time to give us some interesting alternatives!

Another reminder that concentration camp and extermination center are conflated in the general public, but they are quite different. All the extermination centers were located in what is now present day Poland. Extermination centers is where the genocide of Jews and other "undesirables" took place. Concentration camps are more political in origin and purpose, for confining and punishing non-Jews for opposing the Nazi regime, although many Jews died in concentration camps also, especially after the Soviet troops occupied Auschwitz/Birkenau.

Without looking up formal numbers, of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis, about 50% were killed in extermination camps in what is now Poland, about 49% died in ghettos of disease and starvation or while being transported to ghettos or extermination camps, or were shot in killing fields in the occupied Soviet Union, leaving about 1% who died in concentration camps. Not exact numbers, just pointing out the roll of concentration camps in the Holocaust is much smaller than people think.

Also, not to slam Munich which is a fine looking city and I'm sure wonderful to live in, but after Italy it will seem pretty bland with attractions of only slight interest.

I would not make much of a distinction between concentration camps and extermination camps. Thousands of people were murdered at concentration camps, some literally worked to death (Matthausen), some murdered for various infractions, and some died as a result of "medical research" on humans. My point is that after a certain time, when political prisoners were no longer released at the completion of a sentence, all these camps were death camps; survival of the inmates was not expected.

According to statistics posted at Auschwitz, a deliberately operated extermination camp, the average life span at this camp (including Birkenau) was about three months.

If you are in Munich anyway, it's real easy to get out to the camp in the suburbs. However, if you are coming from the airport, you probably have luggage with you. Where to store it? According to the Memorial's own website, this page, there are no provisions there to store luggage. There are some lockers (Schliesfächer) at the Dachau Bahnhof, but I think I recall them all being full when I was there. A more reliable place for your luggage is the Hbf, with a room full of lockers, but that takes some back-tracking. If you are spending at least one night in Munich, check into you hotel and leave your luggage there before going to the Memorial.

If you are coming from the airport to downtown Munich anyway, you should be using a group all-day pass for the entire MVV (Gesamtnetz Gruppen Tageskarte for 23,90€), so it will cover unlimited transport in the MVV, including by S-Bahn and bus to the Memorial. If you are already in downtown Munich, you will need a München XXL Gruppen Tageskarte for 15,90€; it covers unlimited use of all the conveyance in the inner two zones for a day.

Admission to the Memorial is free, but you probably want to take the 2½ hour tour led by a guide trained by the Memorial. It costs 3,-€/adult. Or you can go around on your own with an audio guide for 3,50€.