"March 22, 1933. The first prisoners arrive in Dachau. ...There is not set uniform for the prisoners. The procedure is orderly: no hitches, no shouting, no one is mistreated. That evening, the first meal is distributed... Afterward, the prisoners are led... to makeshift sleeping quarters... Because there are no cots and there is no straw, they have to bed down on the concrete floor. The thin blanket... is meager protection against the cold. ...It began as terror against political adversaries, and it ended with the death of millions. In the beginning, vengeance raged: the lust for revenge of a regime that had just gained power, bent on suppressing any who had stood in its way. But after its opponents had been eliminated, a new species of absolute power was unleashed that shattered all previous conceptions of despotism or dictatorial brutality: systematic destruction by means of violence, starvation, and labor—the businesslike annihilation of human beings. In the span of twelve years, the concentration camp metamorphosed from a locus of terror into a universe of horror."