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What was the role of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp during World War II?

by | Mar 7, 2024 | Concentration Camp

Want to explore sachsenhausen concentration camp? Come and join us on the Original Berlin Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial Tour.

Here we look at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, located near Oranienburg, in what was then East Germany, just outside Berlin, and it was significant during the Second World War. This blog post shall therefore be used as a guide to explain as to everything that you ought to know concerning this infamous camp including its history, its purpose and its effect.

1. Origins and Establishment

Sachsenhausen was one of the first concentration camp that was designed in 1936. Initially, it served as a model for future camps, designed to fulfill specific purposes:

Political repression: Sachsenhausen actually mainly served as a prison and a tool of terror for political opponents of the Third Reich, such as communists, social democrats and all kinds of other émigrés who acted against Germany and Hitler’s regime.

Slave labor: Many prisoners were forced to work at the camp under extremely terrible conditions without receiving any wages for it then had to engage in construction works, manufacturing armaments among other tasks.

Punishment and extermination: Sachsenhausen was also fabled for have killed tens of thousands of prisoners through shooting, hanging or through applying various extermination techniques.

2. The Housing Environment and the Lives of prisoners

The prisoners of Sachsenhausen went through inhuman living conditions as well as all kinds of torture. They suffer overcrowding malnutrition diseases, and their sanitary conditions were appalling. The SS guards used a lot of violence in handling the prisoners; and many of the prisoners were subjected to different forms of torture.

2.1 Daily Life in the Camp

Inmates were disciplined by strict rules and conforming was enforced consistently through a seemingly unvarying schedule. Punished by working them to exhaustion, calling for them in the morning, and giving them very little to eat, prisoners were physically and emotionally exhausted. Sanitary conditions were horrible and worsened diseases among the already malnourished people of Ireland.

2.2 examples of Medical Experiments and Human Rights abuses

Sachsenhausen also being a concentrate camp, it also became a stage of inhuman medical experimentation that was carried out among the prisoners. These experiments covered the range from new vaccines and medications experimentations to different surgical operations. Ponzi schemes were inhuman and denied so many people their rights resulting in death and suffering.

3. Liberation and Commemoration

Sachsenhausen was finally liberated by the Soviets in April of 1945 which put an end to the atrocities performed there. Currently it is running as a camp where guests come to read and learn all about how the holocaust killings were done to the Jews.

3.1 The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was used for exhibition and as a museum.

One of the vivid memorial complexes is located in Oranienburg and represents one of the first concentration camps for male prisoners – Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum which provides a large quantity of exhibition describing the history of the camp and the life of prisoners. Today’s visitors can still see fragments of barracks, the crematorium and the “Tower A”, which served as a place of executions and torturing.

3.2 Importance of Remembering

Such concentrations enable subjects to ‘pay’ their respects to the victims, remember the museums and memorials that exist for just this purpose, namely to remind those who visit them of the atrocities that should never be repeated. It is chance to make people understand and respect history, feel tolerance and concern to human rights for the further generations.

4. Conclusion

Sachsenhausen concentration camp was one of the worse concentration camp that was set up during world war two. Having a developed idea of what it was and why it existed, knowing about pains that were experienced there, we would be able to embrace the values of humanism, freedom, defend peace, and kindness.

Want to explore sachsenhausen concentration camp? Come and join us on the Original Berlin Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial Tour.

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What was the role of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp during World War II?

Mar 7, 2024