Baltic Sea and More, part 4 -- the Concentration Camp

January 2025 saw the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps in Germany. We watched the tv coverage of the events, and when we were planning this trip, Norbert said he would like to visit one of the memorials.

So on the Thursday morning, we left the Müritz area and drove about an hour and a half south to Oranienburg, just north of Berlin.

The Gedankstätte and Museum Sachsenhausen is the site of the Sachsenhausen Kz (Konzentrationslager) a concentration camp. It was operated by the Nazis from 1933 to 1945. Overall it held more than 200,000 prisoners, with more than 30,000 killed on site. After the war, the Soviets took it over and used it until 1950. Around 60,000 people were held there over the five years, and at least 12,000 died of disease and malnutrition.

It is now operated by a foundation and is open free of charge. 

Guard tower.

The guard house and main entrance to the camp itself.

This the "neutral zone". Wikipedia tells us, "The neutral zone was located between the camp wall and the prisoners' camp. Between the zone and the wall was a trip wire, cheval de frise, barbed-wire obstacles, an electrified barbed-wire fence, and a sentry path"

And if that wasn't enough, this sign warns that anyone found there would be shot on sight,

Of the many barracks, only two remain. 

You can visit room Nr. 51, which is stripped to the walls. Eleven Jewish youths were held in this room for one year, as tests were conducted on them with such diseases as hepatitis. Surprisingly, most or all survived.

German law required an autopsy for every death. The sheer number of deaths made this difficult, so they resorted to short cuts, with most of the autopsies done by prisoners. 

Some of the photographs and descriptions on display may be disturbing, but on the whole there is nothing gruesome there. It is more a place of quiet and reflection on man's inhumanity to man.

it is also heavily visited by teen-aged students. There must have been several hundred there when we visited, and we heard at least three different languages. One can only hope that they understood the message of the camp.