By My apologies for the delay in this series, this is a difficult post to write. Concentration camps are not easy places to visit. They are places of sadness, death, and painful memories. That being said, they should be visited. The people whose lives were shattered in those awful places deserve to be remembered.
Sachsenhausen is free to visit and originally Keltin and I were going to visit it without a guide. However, we spoke to our walking tour guide and he suggested visiting with a guide for several reasons:
- There are a large number of memorial exhibits at Sachsenhausen and it can be overwhelming.
- There is an audio tour that gives a lot of information and can be overwhelming.
- All the guides have to be certified before they can give tours of Sachsenhausen.
This was a six hour walking tour. led by a guide from Insider Tours. Two of those hours were travel time to and from Berlin to Oranienburg where Sachsenhausen is located. This is the same train station prisoners would have been taken to before being forced to march to the camp. This camp was not a normal concentration camp; it housed prisoners of war, political prisoners, and those of Jewish decent. This camp was also where they experimented on the most efficient ways to get rid of people.
Note: the cost of the tour does not cover the train ticket, that must be purchased separately. The guide can tell you the right ticket to buy.
I took no pictures inside of Sachsenhausen though I did take one of the front gate. I felt that anything else was disrespectful to those that died here. Keltin didn’t even bring the camera. The city of Oranienburg itself has a complicated history with the concentration camp. At the time some citizen had no issues with it, those that voiced their issues found themself inside and so others stayed quiet so as not to share that fate. There are other buildings in Oranienburg that were built as homes and office of the members of the SS officers. Those also have a very contentious history as they have been repurposed for use in these modern times.
Memorials to dead Soviet soldiers can also be seen in Oranienburg and in the camp because when the camp was still under Nazi control many of those that were killed to test efficiency methods were captured Soviet soldiers. After Germany lost WWII, Sachsenhausen was used by the Soviets as a POW camp.
I cannot say that I enjoyed this tour, looking at this type of darkness is not meant to be a good time. That being said, going with a guide was a good decision, she provided information we would not have gotten otherwise. People can be so cruel and places like this stand testament to that. We must remember the darkest parts of history to protect the future.
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