In the second world war, the retreating Nazis built several death camps in the occupied countries. Such camps were meant to serve the goal of genocide and annihilation of millions, including the Jews. Although Auschwitz in German occupied Poland is better known as a death camp, there were such concentration camps near the German capital of Berlin.
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
The Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp is near Oranienburg and was originally built in 1936. Together with Dachau it became an ideological and practical prototype of other concentration camps and transformed into a meant of retribution and terror. The center of forced and tortured labour, like Runeberg, Sachsenhausen started as an essentially political prison for Poles and other anti-Nazi nationalities.
Life in Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen’s conditions were atrocistic and unjustifiable. Members of the penal system consisted of hall-convicts whounderwent forced labor, starvation, and physical abuse. They were used for medical purposes and poisoned And most of them died from diseases or extreme torture. ESLT 3 They also had a gas chamber to dispatch prisoners with and an execution area.
Sachsenhausen belonged to the concentration camps where new methods of mass extermination were developed and where SS men were trained. The part of the camp referred to as “Station Z” was used both for shooting and other gruesome medical experimentation.
Ravensbrück, Women’s Concentration Camp
Ravensbrück is a Nazi concentration camp situated about ninety kilometers north of Berlin; it was the largest camp for women during the holocaust. It existed between 1939 and 1945 to imprison about 130000 women of diverse nationalities such as political prisoners, resistance movement members, Jehovah witnesses, and Jewish women.
Conditions in Ravensbrück
I found that the women who were imprisoned in Ravensbrück suffered so much through the horror of the Second World War. They suffered from slavery like jobs, vivisections and torture mentally as well as physically all the time. There was a gas chamber through which thousands of women were killed in the camp.
Ravensburg was also training place for female SS guards who were taught to be cruel and violent. The prisoners on the concentration camps died from diseases, hunger, and torturous medical tests.
Buchenwald Concentration Camp
Situated in the town of Weimar, some 280 kilometers to the south west of Berlin, Buchenwald was one of the largest, and also one of the longest surviving concentration camps in Germany. It was first set up in 1937 and was originally largely used as a camp for prisoners of conscience, although this was soon developed into an industrialized killing center for a wide range of ‘racial’ and ‘social’ undesirables.
Life and Death in Buchenwald
High brutality was characteristic for Buchenwald. Inmates suffered from lack of food, hard labor and physical violence ones core. Many of them succumbed to sickness, hunger and fatigue or were gased in one of the camp’s several gas chambers.
During World War II the camp was liberated by Allied Forces in April 1945 and horrible suffering within the camp was exposed. The liberators would also ensure that documentation of the crimes committed in the camp since most of them would testify during the trials of the Nazi war criminals in the subsequent trials .
Remembering the Victims
Some of the extermination camps were the death camps near Berlin that staged some of the most outrageous inhumanity during the Holocaust. These are places where one is able to go and honor those that lost their lives, see with own eyes what took place and make sure that it never happens again.
These are some of the places that need to be conserved since they play the role of helping people remember, learn and avoid making the same mistakes since hatred and discriminations are still present today.
As a result, we cannot let millions die and must work towards having all respect, tolerance, and human rights by everyone in the society.
