During World War II, Berlin served as an important center for the Nazi regime. The city was not only the political capital but also the site of several concentration camps. These camps were used by the Nazis to incarcerate and exterminate millions of individuals, primarily Jews, but also political opponents, Roma people, and others deemed undesirable to the regime.

1. Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was among those first built by the Nazis in the first years after Hitler assumed the chancellorship. Sachsenhausen was situated in Oranienburg, about 30 kilometers North of Berlin and was one of the first camps throughout the entire system of Nazi concentration camps. It started in 1936 and also remained functional throughout the Second World War until it was liberated in April 1945.

Sachsenhausen held prisoners in truly appalling conditions and forced them to work in its industries, drove them into starvation and savagely beat them. It was mainly a political prison as well as detention centre for racially or socially undesirable people in the eyes of the Nazi. Their fate was similar to 30 thousands inmates who died in Sachsenhausen during the holocaust Many of them were given medical experiments.

2. The Ravensbrück Concentration Camp

As is the case with many of the concentration camps run by the Nazis, Ravensbrück did not start as one, it became one when around 90 kilometers north of Berlin, a larger camp for women was established. It was created in 1939 and imprisoned women of different status, such as political criminals, Jews, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

This camp of Ravensbrück was in terrible condition and prisoners were used for experiments, forced to work, and even tortured. The women were taken to the camp in larger numbers, where 132000 women and girls were registered and about 20000 of them died due to poltical persecution, lack of food and diseases.

3. Ohrdruf Subcamp

The first forced concentration camp built for that purpose was in Oranienburg, near Berlin. It started in 1933, soon after the Nazis seized power, and functioned until 1934 when it was closed down and reborn as Sachsenhausen. Oranienburg was the prototype upon which subsequent camp systems were based.

That camp was mostly used for political prisoners and those labeled as enemies of the state. Torture; the prisoners were beaten and forced to work. Concentration camps in Oranienburg became the prototype for the much larger system of concentration camps that came later.

4. Columbia-Haus Concentration Camp

Columbia-Haus based in Berlin’s neighborhood of Kreuzberg was initially built for the purpose of a prison. But during the world war it was transformed into a concentration camp. It mainly detained political prisoners – the members of the Communist Party, and the fighters against occupation.

The conditions in Columbia-Haus were extremely poor and prisoners were tortured as well as executed. Political opposition in Berlin and the camp was efficiently controlled by the Nazi regime during the 1933-1945 period.

5. Gross-Rosen Subcamp

It is important to indicate that Gar probably was not an independent camp in Berlin but a branch of a camp Gross-Rosen which was situated in the occupied Polish territory. The subcamp was created in 1944 near Berlin in Schöneweide area.

Second, it mainly detained prisoners intended for work in factories neighboring the prison. The prisoners received meager and poor treatment and their work was strenuous and exhausting as a result most of them died.

Conclusion

The concentration camps in Berlin as with any in the other states across Europe were indeed integral part of the larger network of Nazi concentration camps that were actually involved in the incarceration as well as annihilation of millions of people of all origin under the course of holocaust. The concentration camps it included Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, and Oranienburg, Columbia-Haus, Gross Rosen, and the Gross Rosen subcamp were some of the camps which were so inhuman that they where located in or around Berlin.

For other to not happen in the future, and as a way to remember the victims, it is important that people remember as well as learn about these camps.