Sachsenhausen Camp

Sachsenhausen Camp is a concentration camp on Berlin's northern fringes and I eventually got to visit today. It has long been on my 'to-do' list so I was glad to take the train up and cycle over to it. It was very interesting, though sad to think what men can do to men, there must surely be something demonic about the perpetrators.

Here are the pictures...


Gate A - the entrance into the camp (any guesses about gate Z?). The camp side of the gate has a balcony with machine guns mounted and trained permanently on the prisoners.



Through the actual gate into the camp - with the inscription ARBEIT MACHT FREI, roughly translated as 'work will make you free'.



In case you do not work hard enough (and therefore 'don't feel free'), don't try to get free through the gravel 'shoot-at-will' zone, barbed wire, electric fence, dog patrol and concrete wall.


Roll call ground where prisoners were forced to stand or crouch, hands behind heads, for hours on end in all weathers. Move and you get beaten (and if you'll lucky, not killed). On the post war concrete wall are the outlines of more prisoner huts that used to stand there but are long since demolished.



Prisoner hut



Execution squad firing range also with 4 simple gallows in the beam across the top.




Cremation ovens - largely destroyed by the Communists. These ovens are in the part of the grounds called 'camp Z'. the implication being that you walk in through gate a but can only leave through camp Z via the execution methods and cremation ovens. A-Z, the full circle. :-(




Mortuary



Memorial