Visiting a Former Concentration Camp

While in Berlin, I felt it was important for me to visit Sachsenhausen, a former concentration camp.  It is located in Oranienburg, a town just outside of Berlin.  It was primarily a work camp for prisoners of war in the beginning, but as the war went on, people that the Third Reich deemed inferior were taken to this camp as well.  There will be no pictures in this post.  Respectfully, I chose not to take photos of any part of the camp.  I want to preface this post by saying that putting what I felt into words is difficult.  I don't think there is any way to truly convey what I felt without taking you there to walk on the camp grounds like I did, but I'm going to try.

I signed up for a guided tour; there were five people on the tour including myself.  We traveled by train together to get to Oranienburg.  The journey there took us about an hour and once we got to town, it was another twenty minute walk to the camp.  Oranienburg is a quaint little town, and I admired the old houses as we walked though a neighborhood and then suddenly came upon a wall..  We had arrived at the camp.  Our guide gave us a brief historical overview as we looked at a map of the camp's layout, and we started walking down the road toward the main gates of Sachsenhausen.

The road was lined by a wall on one side and a mesh fence on the other.  On the other side of the mesh fence, we could see what used to be the SS training facility and another building that used to be guards' and captains' quarters.  Then we were greeted by a large arch that would have been pretty in any other circumstance.  This entry to the camp was aesthetically pleasing; it was the part that the guards could see from their quarters and from the road, so it was designed in such a way that it was less unnerving I suppose.  As we walked through the arch, we stepped into a large courtyard.  This was where prisoners were met by camp guards.. and the horror truly began.

On the other side of the courtyard was a large building full of windows.  This tall building was tower A, the tower that was used to observe the entire camp.  A large machine gun used to be mounted in the upper floor of the tower.. Within the arch of this building were the camp gates.  The infamous words, "Arbeit macht frei," were on the gate.  While the words mean, "work will set you free," this was not the case.  These words were placed at the entrance of the camp to motivate and even patronize prisoners as they walked in.

I knew the tour was going to be hard, but it didn't really hit me until I set foot in that courtyard.  I realized that I was now walking the same path that so many thousands of people had walked before me.. but they didn't get to walk back out of this gate.  I was about to walk in the gates of a cemetery.

We followed our guide into the camp and saw where rows and rows of barracks used to stand.  All of the barracks had been destroyed, but in there place were the outlines of their foundations.  One of the barracks had been reconstructed and now housed a museum.  My first thought when I saw the outlines was that the barracks really weren't very big.  They were each built to house maybe 100 prisoners, max.  To my horror, I discovered that there were often closer to 500 prisoners in each building.  Inside the reconstructed barrack, we could see what the bunks and bathroom looked like.  It was truly inconceivable that so many people were crammed into these buildings.  Three people would share a twin bed.. I'm not even sure it was as large as a twin.

After seeing the barracks, we walked to the kitchen.  This building was original.  We visited another museum inside this building and went down to the basement which was left in its original state.  It was very very eerie, but it was nothing compared to what we saw in the other half of the camp.

We walked through the roll call area to get to the other part of the camp, the industrial yard.  This large open area that was used for roll call each day was also where the gallows stood.  Prisoners that were hung here were left out in the open as an "example" for others..

The industrial yard was walled off from the rest of the camp.  This was the portion of the camp where the prisoners were forced to work.  Eventually, it became the part of the camp where thousands of prisoners were executed.

Now, I've been writing in a fairly subjective way so far.  But that in no way means that I wasn't full of emotions up to this point in the tour.  Besides our tour guide's informative speeches here and there along the tour, we were silent.  All I could think was that every step I took was on ground that at least 300,000 other people had walked on.  300,000 prisoners, most of whom died here.  They were walking these paths as they starved to death.  They were walking these paths as disease killed them.  They were walking these paths, praying they'd live another day.

As we walked into the industrial part of the camp, my heart sank even further.  I'm not sure how to explain it, but my chest physically felt heavy.  Like I couldn't breathe.  The first thing we saw was the trench that was used to kill people by firing squad.  Prisoners would be loaded into a van, and the van would back up to the entrance to the trench.  The officers would then order them to run down through the trench... and guards up top would shoot them all..  We walked through the trench.  And this was when I really began to struggle to keep the tears back.  As I walked down into the trench, I realized that this was the last thing that so many people saw.  These were their last terrified steps.  I made my way back out of the trench and it hit me that I was doing what almost nobody else at this camp had been privileged to do -- walk out of this trench.

The next building had been destroyed at the end of the war.  It used to house a gas chamber and a crematorium.  All that was left was the foundations and some reconstructed remnants of the four ovens that were housed here.  This is when I cracked.  We walked along the remains of the building and my chest felt so heavy I could hardly breathe.  There was information and history to read in the building, but I couldn't do it.  I went outside for some fresh air.

The very last building we went in was a building that was used for scientific experiments, and the basement was used as a "mortuary."  This building was incredibly creepy.  I really can't describe the uneasy feeling I experienced walking through the tiled rooms where so many people were used like lab rats.  The basement was worse.  It was essentially just one large concrete room, but there was a large ramp at the back of the building that went down to the basement.  Bodies were thrown down the ramp to be held in the mortuary until they could be disposed of...

This post ended up really long, but all I can really say is that my experience was one of deep, heavy sadness.  I've read my share of books about Nazi concentration camps, and while I knew about the things happening inside them, I didn't truly understand until I stepped foot in a camp.  I wish I could find the words to convey to you what I felt there.  I think that if you are ever in Europe and able to visit a camp, you should.  Nothing will make you more passionate about ensuring that history doesn't repeat itself than that.  Sadly, the people who need to see the camps most, will never step foot inside one.

To anyone who made it to the end of my long post, thank you for taking the time to read about my experience.