During our excursion to Berlin, we were given the opportunity to take a guided tour of the memorial site of the former concentration camp of Sachsenhausen. There is no real way to put into words the intensity of such a place; the crimes and horrors committed there are painful to hear about, yet even more painful to see in person. When we first arrived at Sachsenhausen, we all noted how cold the weather was. As our tour guide, Michael, took us to the entrance of the camp, he asked us to keep in mind that while we were cold standing there in our winter coats and layers that prisoners of the camp were given only two cheaply made outfits. And the weather was to get much colder than that September afternoon. With that, we headed inside for what would be one of the most emotional tours I have ever been on.
We started by learning some important information about Sachsenhausen. Between 1936 and 1945, more than 200,000 people were imprisoned in Sachsenhausen. At first the prisoners were political opponents of the national socialist regime. As time continued, people declared by the national socialists to be racially or biologically inferior were imprisoned at Sachsenhausen (Homosexuals, Jews, etc).
Sachsenhausen concentration camp was built in the form of an equilateral triangle with its buildings grouped symmetrically around an axis. This was the “ideal” or “model” concentration camp that others soon mimicked. A semicircular roll-call area was located directly in front of a tower where a SS officer monitored the proceedings. The camp is almost a perfect equilateral triangle.
On the tour, we were able to visit the barracks where the prisoners lived. Overcrowded, unsanitary and overall harsh conditions, the barracks were by no means a place to live. We were able tosee original torture devices that were used on the prisoners by the SS officers. The cruelty of these mechanisms was sometimes so intense that prisoners would die during the torturing. Continuing, we went to the “hospital” where many were brutally murdered. We saw what were once a gas chamber, an execution chamber and a crematorium. Prisoners entered the building believing they were having a routine check-up only to be senselessly murdered.
I think the hard part of visiting a concentration camp is the remembering. We have learned about the holocaust since we were old enough to absorb the tragedies of what occurred. Perhaps we hear something so much that we become numb to it. Everyone can agree that the holocaust was horrendous and everything that took place is so awful it is hard to contemplate. At times on the tour I felt as though I was in a museum, one that I may have visited in Washington, DC. However, as I walked into the room where lives were cut far too short and acts of such appalling violence occurred, I think it hit me more than I thought possible.
I know that Auschwitz is a popular camp to visit. Given the opportunity, I would want to visit there, or any other camp for that matter. I do not believe that all camps are the same and that if you’ve seen one, you have the general idea. Each camp has a grizzly story where people’s fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters were ripped from their lives and were treated as if they were subhuman. Sachsenhausen concentration camp has a dark, dark history.
It is hard to find words, but I can say this: seeing a concentration camp, putting a real picture with the stories I had heard, was one of the hardest things I have ever seen. May all the souls taken at Sachsenhausen and during the holocaust rest in peace. You are not forgotten.
Written by: Kate Remsen
