July 9, 2025
I knew that today would be a emotionally hard day because we had book a tour to Sachsenhausen, a former Nazi concentration camp but I decided that I could not come to Berlin without exploring this part of history. It was emotionally harder because of what is happening in the US.
Sachsenhousen was originally built in 1936 to house 6000 political prisoners and criminals but quickly grew into a population of over 25,000 meaning resulting in people sleeping 2-3 in a bunk.
Sachsenhausen was a labour camp, outfitted with several subcamps, a gas chamber, and a medical experimentation area. Prisoners were treated inhumanely, fed inadequately, and killed openly. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone.
Overall, at least 30,000 inmates died in Sachsenhausen from causes such as exhaustion, disease, malnutrition and pneumonia, as a result of the poor living conditions. Many were executed or died as the result of brutal medical experimentation.
The feature picture is of memorial to the women who were forced into service in the camp’s brothel for the Nazi Officers. I purposely did not take pictures of the gas chambers and crematorium. It was just too overwhelming to think that human’s chose to treat each other so inhumanly.
The captive were forced to walk from the train station through the town to the long walk to the front gate where their life changed forever.
Our guide’s final statement before we left the camp to walk back to the train station was “ This happened because of actions and choices”!!
We visited Auschwitz in April (I had been to Dachau in the 80’s). Sobering, and as you mentioned, especially with what we are seeing in our country today. Our actions from this point are indeed critical!!
OMG!!! I was in tears reading your post and seeing the pictures of the camp. Even though cleaned up, I could imagine the barracks, and the horrors the prisoners endured. I pray that our leaders come to their senses and stop going down the same road.