Sachsenhausen concentration camp, located just outside Berlin, was one of the earliest and most notorious concentration camps established by the Nazis. This blog post aims to provide you with a comprehensive overview of this historical site, exploring its history, purpose, and impact.
The Origins of Sachsenhausen
Oranienburg-Sachsenhausen was established as one in 1936 by the SS as part of the structures that the Nazi regime needed. Its role was also to hold and persecute perceived opponents of the regime, gypsies, Jewish people, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and other hated minorities.
The camp was in the first instance intended and provision for training of SS personnel of a model facility. But, with Nazi regime, soon it became a hub of bonded labour and concentration camps as well as killing fields. The strategic location to the central city of Berlin worked well with the guarding and control vested in the SS.
Life Inside the Camp
Situations prevailing in Sachsenhausen were quite hard. Many ended up enduring cramped conditions ; they starved ; they sweated to fill the quotas of the prison industries. The camp was sub divided into areas such as the Quarantine Area, Detention Cells, and Execution Area referred to as Station Z.
People were humiliated, beaten to death and they also experimented on them medically. grind them down further, the SS used roll calls: prisoners were ordered to stand outside, naked or wearing improvised clothing, no matter how hot or cold it was.
Another area, where erosion of the human dignity was marked, was physical environment at the camp. The principal gate had the inscription Arbeit Macht Frei this was mockery, since one was far from freedom when behind the barbed wire fenced.[1]
Some of the famous prisoners in the prison include the following and other.Doors us activities in the prison.
This camp was occupied by several famous people imprisoned by the Nazi government. These consisted of political prisoners, musicians, intellectual and members of the resistance movements.
Among the prisoners, one can recall a pathologist Professor Hermann Stieve, who performed post-mortems with female prisoners executed in Sachsenhausen. These examinations were meant to be to educator the medical students that he was teaching, and help him continue with the torture that was invented by the Nazis.
:The objectives of the Liberation and Memorialization were mainly.
The concentration camp Sachsenhausen was liberated by Soviet force in April 1945. After the war, the Soviet Secret Police used the camp for political prisoners, until 1950.
Today, the place is a memorial and museum where people can get acquainted with the kinds of treatment prisoners of war received. The exhibits are about daily life in the camps, the environment of violence, and its effects on the survivors.
Essentials of Sachsenhausen Tour
As it sometimes becomes crowded, try to plan your visit in advance.
Tour is the best way to get more acquainted with the camp and its history.
Visit in appropriate dressing code and especially good shoes because the site demands a lot of walking.
Give yourself time to think and feel the emotion that may follow while conducting the visit.
Do not engage in vulgar acts oropic photography in order to demonstrate respect.
Preserving the Memory
It is very important to preserve the memory of Sachsenhausen and all those other concentration camps for the sake of the younger generations so that they would understand that what has happened in the past must not be repeated in the future.
Every non-performing prisoner, who ever suffered within this camp, is really a vivid illustration of the effects of hatred, discrimination and abuse of power. Thus, education and revulsion should be the two main tools by which one is to work towards the fact these events never occurred in the first place.
The horror of Sachsenhausen concentration camp tells visitors a kaleidoscope of horrors that human beings are capable of. We can encourage more people of different ages and backgrounds to join movements to build a more empathetic society by get ting to know the history and paying respects.