The Sassenhausen Concentration Camp was one of main concentration camp the Nazis had set up during the World War II in the Netherlands known as the SS-Sonderlager S in German. This camp was created in 1943, and therefore at first served as a transit camp where the Jewish prisoners were shipped off to other concentration camps.

Background and Purpose

The ss-The Sos was an extended ss-Sonderlager S since it was established primarily for utilization of labor services of the Jewish population. The prisoners were forced to labor and were employed in other German factories nearby. They made the camp close to important industrial regions respectively to facilitate the utilization of the prisoners in concentration camps as free labor to the Nazis.

Living Conditions

The living standards of the people living in Sassenhausen were so disgusting. The prisoners were crowded into annexes converted into barrack form, which were unventilated and lacked sanitary facilities. During the winter they froze to their bones and during the hot summer months they almost choked to death. Under-nutrition was rife because the prisoners were fed sparingly to ensure they would survive on limited measly food rations.

Medical Experiments

As in other concentration camps, the prisoners of Sassenhausen were forced into various forms of labor besides being subjected to forced nakedness, poor shelter, and being fed sparingly and unsatisfactorily, the prisoners in Sassenhausen were used in medical experiments. These experiments ranged in nature from gauging effects of certain diseases and specific drugs on human guinea pigs with most of the subjects suffering or giving their lives in the experiment. These unethical experiments were carried out by the Nazi as part of their quest for cleansing of races that were considered to be impure.

Resistance and Liberation

Still it seems that prisoners in Sassenhausen did not give up and they proved themselves as brave individuals. Some of the prisoners organized themselves into resistance groups and subversive activities within the concentrated camp. Some sacrificed their lives to capture whatever brutality that seemed to be in progress as evidence for the generations to come.

The camp was liberated by the Allied forces in April 1943. The arrival of the liberators means that the suffering of the prisoners is over, yet they lost so many of their fellows because of tortures in the camp.

The Importance of Remembering

The Sassenhausen Concentration Camp of Holocaust needs to be recollected in order to comprehend the crimes that were executed at that historic period. Thus, if we learn about such episodes in our history, it becomes possible to make all similar acts impossible in the future. It remains our duty to pay respect to the victims of such a tragedy as Sassenhausen and other camps.

Conclusion

The Sassenhausen Concentration Camp holds the most unpleasant history of the organised cruelty done to thousands of people at the time of the second world war. It symbolises the fact that as people we are able to survive, to rise above the darkness that the holocaust was and never again forget the evil that was carried out during the holocaust. To create a future that is empty of hatred and inhumanity is the power of memory, and that is why it is so important.