The Berlin Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen, located just outside Berlin, was one of the first concentration camps established by the Nazis in 1936. It played a significant role during the Nazi regime and the Holocaust. In this blog post, we will explore the purpose, history, and the lasting impact of Sachsenhausen. Let’s dive in!

1. History and Purpose

Sachsenhausen as was with other concentration camps was built by the SS for it to become the prototype camp for all other concentration camps. Its deliberate and primary function was a political prison and punishment for a variety of classifications of people as undesirable or dangerous to the regime by the Nazis. First, it was prisoners of politics, opponents of the regime, trade union members, minorities like religious ones, but later, a broader category of people like homosexuals, the sick, the poor, Gypsies, vagrants.

It also had the added function of training personnel of the SS, who in future ran the management of other concentration and extermination camps. Located near Berlin it turned the camp into an easily accessible area for high-ranking Nazi official who became directly involved in the running of the camp.

2. Housing As Provided to Inhabitants of Sachsenhausen

Life in Sachsenhausen became a living nightmare, people could find themselves starved to death and all with Stalin and Hitler grinning at you through those frightening Nazi glasses. The prisoners have been exposed to overcrowded cells, lack of adequate food, and received implements of physical torture, and forced to work. Surviving was a synonym to a battle of every day, with more people dying from hunger, illnesses, and extermination.

The camp ironically consisted of the official part where directors and officers worked, the residential area, and the so-called ‘Station Z,’ conceived to annihilate enormous numbers of people.

2.1 Living Quarters

Some prisoners were confined in small baracks like structures which were either inadequately heated or in worst positions provided with poor form of sanitation . They lived in beds that were mere wooden frames with no mattresses and blankets, they suffer These were dehumanizing conditions that were meant to reduce and demoralize the inmates.

2.2 Forced Labor

A major interest in the life of the prisoners in Sachsenhausen was work. There were many exhausting jobs prisoners had to perform including working in factories, quarries and building constructions. A lot of prisoners died from exhaustion, while others were beaten mercilessly for failing to meet set incredibly high productions. The labor done also helped to lead the machinery of German war.

3. Libération et Mémorialisation

Sachsenhausen was liberated by the Soviet’s in April 1945 and it brought to an end to its evil practices. Following the war the camp was utilized for Soviet interest until the camp was ultimately shut down in 1950. Today this is an assembly and concentration camp Sachsenhausen a museum complex telling the stories of the people suffered in the Nazis’ time.

The information and exhibits in the museum include reconstructed barracks, historical documents, as well as people’s stories. These resources inform the visitors of holocaust and provide them a somber message about the importance of the camp to avoid recalling such tragedy in the future.

3.1 Sachsenhausen, Current Distinctions

Before planning for a tour to Sachsenhausen it is very important to be sensitive to the place and the people associated with its story. And that in its capacity as a place of remembrance, appropriate behavior is important. For more information about the camp and its history you may use the available informative guides and audio tours.

Please also be ready for the emotional experience which such a visit can produce. Do not rush in absorbing the details as well as the visit; take your required time and energy to be psychologically stable during/after the visit.

4. Conclusion

It is necessary to mention the Berlin Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen in order to acknowledge the account of the experience of concentration camp and holocaust suffering. It’s important not just because it claimed the lives of numerous people, but as a result of which it is high time we where draw a lesson or two from this unpleasant episode in history.

Only when knowing the, reasons for creating Sachsenhausen, its history and the effects of systematic practices, can an effective measure be taken to PIO, for the annihilation of discrimination, prejudice and brutality in today’s world. In the words and actions of the victims, as well as in the efforts to continue the memory of Sachsenhausen, one sees reason why such humane goal cannot be ignored and why the Nazis must pay for their inhumanity.