Sachsenhausen

As I’ve “tweeted” about before, I am on the road a lot going from city to city. But the schedule has worked out so I have been back in Berlin for most of my weekends. A typical weekend in Berlin usually consists of walking around the city with my camera taking random snapshots of street life, architecture, and any interesting images with my trusty little point and shoot; grabbing drinks with coworkers in a lively part of the city at night; brunch at one of the millions of moderately priced buffets; and then taking in a culture or historically related activity during the other free day. Three weekends ago my cultural activity was one of the more memorable ones. I met up with the same company that organized the free walking tours of Berlin, but this time went on a tour of Sachsenhausen concentration camp in the town of Oranienburg just north or Berlin.

A visit to a concentration camp means something different to every person and each of us go for our own reasons. Many go to commemorate a struggle that forms an integral part of family identity. Many go as fans of history to learn lessons of the past that are as inspiring as they are horrific. Regardless of the reason, there’s no denying the educational value of a visit. I really commend New Europe, the company that organized this tour and the free walking tour of Berlin. If you ever find yourself in a European city where New Europe offers tours, I strongly urge you to go on one. Their standard city walking tours are free and the excursion trips such as this one cost minimal money but you get maximum reward for your euro. The guides are friendly, engaging, articulate, funny (when the venue and moment is appropriate of course) and above all, extremely learned about the subject matter of the tour.

Sachsenhausen was a labor camp. Among concentration camps, there were death camps where prisoners went for the sole purpose of being executed, and labor camps which provided the slave labor for the heavy industry, artillery, and capital goods for the German war machine. Sachsenhausen was actually the “model” camp that was used for the design of most of the labor camps that were subsequently built. It was “active” from 1936-April 21, 1945 and the clock above the main entrance is still frozen on the hour and minute when the Allied troops arrived and liberated it. Sachsenhausen was among the camps evacuated in 1944-45 for the Nazi organized death marches. As it became clearer that the Germany was going to lose WWII, the Nazis evacuated the concentration camps and burnt a lot of infrastructure to destroy any corroborating evidence of the Holocaust. The Allies were approaching from the West, the Soviets from the East, so the Nazis evacuated prisoners and forced them to march north to the Baltic Sea where anyone left alive from the journey were put on boats and sunk.

While the camp was “freed” in 1945 from German control, it was still used by the Soviets until the early 1950s for much of the same purpose – to incarcerate political dissidents, prisoners, and anyone deemed threatening to the ruling party. It was closed down in 1951 but most of the infrastructure and monuments that are left in place are deliberate signs of Soviet propaganda.

Depending on your take, ironically or appropriately, the same buildings at Sachsenhausen that were the barracks and dorms for the camp officers during the war today serve as the national headquarters for the German police force. Ironic for many because why the hell would you perpetuate the same function for a building from such a dark chapter in a country’s history? Appropriate for others (including Germany’s government) because it is precisely the identical location effect that serves as a reminder for German police every day on the limits of their power and the correct way to enforce the law.

The chills didn’t really hit me until I got to the entrance of the main gate. The gate at Sachsenhausen, as at most if not all other camps, had the rusted metallic words etched onto the bars – “Arbeit Macht Frei”/”Work will set you free.” It was an obvious message of deception giving the prisoners an infinitesimal hope that hard work and obedience could possibly liberate them. The last spot that we toured at the camp proved to have an equally deceiving element to it….

The area of camp permissible to visitors, as it exists today, is basically a huge open space about two football fields long and three fields wide fenced in by a semicircular shaped perimeter of walls. There are only two remaining bunkers which used to be sleeping quarters. One is entirely preserved in its original form while the other has been transformed into a museum which houses photos, artifacts, and relevant relics. But during its peak years of operation, the camp had – I would estimate since I forget the exact number – about 200 bunkers. Concrete blocks now mark the places where bunkers used to be, which you can see in some of the pictures.

Directly across the main entrance watch tower which served as the camp’s central command and the observatory point for the camp generals stands a huge memorial dedicated to the Soviet Union’s role in the liberation of Sachsenhausen. As mentioned, the camp was used by the Soviets for about five years after the war so most of the memorials are propagandistic tools built to promote Soviet power and ideology. Being directly across from the Nazi watchtower and standing at least twice as large, the memorial was constructed to celebrate the triumph of communism over fascism.

The last spot we visited was a section of the camp called Station Z. It was the execution site. Sachsenhausen was predominantly a labor camp, but after the German invasion of Russia in 1941, Russian POWs were brought to Sachsenhausen and ordered to be executed. However, I’m sure that Station Z served as execution grounds for more than just Russian POWs. Basically Station Z was advertised as a clinic and prisoners were brought there under the lie that they would be given checkups and medical treatments. Prisoners sat in a waiting room a dozen or so at a time and were then brought into an adjacent room where they lined up against a wall. They thought that they were going thru the preliminary steps of a physical with height and weight measurements. But as they were lined up, someone from behind the wall opened up a small slotted window and shot the prisoner in the back of the head. The room was then immediately hosed down and bodies dragged out by other prisoners working at the station and then disposed of in ovens pictured below.

It was a bone chilling way to end the tour before walking back to the metro station along the identical 15 minute route thru town that prisoners made when they first arrived in Oranienburg.

Top left: ovens for disposing executed bodies; Top right: Station Z rooms; Bottom left:commemorative memoral at Station Z; Bottom right: execution site

It’s a hard to sum up such a visit so I’ll echo some thoughts similar to what my tour guide articulated very eloquently. There was a disturbing dehumanizing effect that went on at the camp. Of course it applied to the prisoners whose heads were shaven, names stripped, and any remains of dignity and individualism completely lost when they stepped foot in that camp. But it also applied to the soldiers and camp guards. They were products of an oppressive system and dehumanized thru a brainwashing effect of what the world is and how authority should be enforced. That wasn’t unique to Germany or WWII. It’s an effect and occurrence that has repeated itself for centuries, and sadly still exists in the world today. A visit to a place like Sachsenhausen shouldn’t be just a tick in a box on the list of things to do. It’s a riveting educational experience that digs deep into the values that we hold, freedoms that we have, the goodness that we strive for in our lives, and the essential lessons to be learned from dark chapters of history.