Berlin: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
I just realized that we never wrote about the camp, so I’m going to add a post about it here.
We met our tour group at the Brandenburg Gate and from there took a 40 minute train ride out to the town near the camp. We walked from there to the camp, where the guide gave us a brief introduction to the camp. He was very knowledge and approached the topic with the seriousness that was appropriate given the topic. Sachsenhausen was actually an all-male labor camp under the Nazis, so it was different than an extermination camp, though he did say that pretty much the only way that prisoners to leave the camp was through death. After WWII, the camp was then used by the Soviets, which makes it somewhat unique. On the edge of the camp there is a small plaque that was created by the Soviets, but it’s somewhat insufficient because it has just the red diamond on it, which was used for the political prisoners. Therefore it ignores the other groups of people that were held at the camp.
When we entered the camp area we first went to a diagram they had of the layout of the camp as it had been during the war. You could tell even from the diagram that it had been massive. We then walked along the outskirts, passing the building that is now used to train German police. It was a strategic placement in some ways: it ensures that those training to become policemen never forget what happened. Apparently all trainees are additionally required to go on a tour of the camp at some point. We also could see on the other side of the fence an old dilapidated building. Since the building is not in the area of the camp it has not been kept up, and the buildings built for the camps were built to be temporary, so without proper care they have fallen apart. This was a reminder that the German fully intended to carry our there mission to its completion and to have totally exterminated the Jews in a relatively short amount of time. This specific building that we saw was a sort of social center for the SS guards – apparently it was set up to restore moral. You don’t really think about what the SS guards experienced, but for many it was psychologically hard to carry out such brutal acts each day, and so alcoholism and drug abuse were high, and though there are no official records of it, it is likely that suicide rates were also high.
At this point we came to the gate where all prisoners entered the camp. On the gate were written three German words that, roughly translated, mean “Work will set you free.” We walked through the gate and into the main area of the camp. From there we went to one of the two barracks that still exists today. We were able to go inside and see the original furnishing, wash areas, and latrines. Having read so many books on the Holocaust it was surreal to actually be in one of the barracks. Another building that we went in had original prisoner uniforms and other items that had been collected from the camp. We also were able to go into on the remaining prison buildings, where political prisoners were kept. Apparently Joseph Stalin’s son was kept there after being captured from the Soviet army. The story goes that Stalin had the opportunity to make a deal with the Germans to save his son, but that he refused to do so, and so when his son heard this he threw himself against the electrical fence and died. Our guide said, though, that there is no proof of this; it may just have been German propaganda.
Near the entrance of the gate was some of the original barbed wire that had stretched around the camp. Based on the height of the outer walls and the height of the barbed wire, it was clear that no one could have ever escaped from the camp. Additionally, there were guards posted in a tower along the wall, so anyone who went into that area would be shot. For a while prisoners who were so desperate would deliberately walk into that area in order to be shot and killed, but the guards soon caught on and started shooting just to injure, not to kill.
From there we saw an area where prisoners were tortured. The torture was done out of sight of the prisoners, but so that they could still hear the cries of the person being tortured throughout the camp. This was another way of mentally controlling the prisoners. In all the time that the camp was in existence, the prisoners never banded together to try to take down the SS guards, partly because of fear, but also because they used certain methods to discourage unity, like making prisoners deliver whip lashes to other prisoners.
One way in which many prisoners in the camp died was through the worst work assignment of them all, which was testing out shoes that would be sent to German troops fighting on the Eastern front. The prisoners selected to do this job would have to walk in the shoes around a track of varying material – rough stone, etc, in order to ensure that the shoes were durable. The prisoners would be forced to walk basically a marathon for 8 hours a day, every day until they inevitably died. One prisoner apparently managed to do it for 14 days straight before finally collapsing.
At this point we walked to the back area of the camp where there is a tall statue erected by the Soviets as a memorial. However, our guide pointed out that memorial is also insufficient because it only gives tribute to the Communist nations whose Jews were killed. It also depicts a Soviet soldier saving two Jewish prisoners during the liberation of the camp, but the prisoners appear strong, whereas in reality they were starving and weak. The Soviets didn’t want to do anything that could make Soviets seem weak.
From there we moved towards what was called Station Z, apparently a little play on words since it was not really a station but in fact the area where they killed prisoners, meaning that it was their last stop. Outside of the building was a ditch where they would shoot prisoners, mostly Russian soldiers. After the invasion of Russia, thousands of prisoners of war were brought to the camp and since the Soviet Union hadn’t signed the Geneva Convention, there were no restrictions on how the POWs could be treated, and so many were killed in mass murders. Eventually, though, it became apparent that these mass shootings were inefficient and hard on the soldiers carrying them out, so a new method was created that I believe was unique to this camp. The building was constructed under the guise of being a hospital, and so prisoners were brought there for a “checkup” and had their throat checked, actually in order for the doctors to see if they had any gold teeth. After that they had their height taken, but what they didn’t know what that behind the ruler was a hole in the wall that led to another room, where a soldier was waiting to shoot the prisoner in the back of the head. The body was then dragged to another room where any gold teeth were extracted and then the bodies were burned. Loud music would be played in the waiting room so that incoming prisoners didn’t know what was happening. Being in what is left of this building and hearing about how the Nazis carried out the executions was definitely the most moving part of the tour. In addition, there was the official memorial of the camp, which is a large statue of man holding another man (a body I think) wrapped in a blanket. On the backside is a quote about why it is so important to remember the atrocities that occurred in the camp.
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