Sachsenhausen: A brutal World War II Concetration Camp

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Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Germany

Sobering and impossible to fully grasp; the two hot and dusty hours we experienced can only come the smallest step towards comprehending what occurred here. It is tradition for each new Prime Minister of Israel to visit this former work camp. Part of the Jewish barracks was burned by Neo Nazis and that is why you can see the fire damage in some of the shots. Of the ~200,000 prisoners that entered the camp about 30,00 never left due mostly impart to the Nazis killing mass numbers at the end of the war when they were trying to hide their crimes. The telling slogan (shown in the first picture) "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work will set you free").

In the one barrack with no damage they said that every air vent was sealed so no air could get in and sometimes people suffocated due to the lack of air (purposeful in some cases). The heat and the smell, even now, made me back out at the beginning.

We couldn’t bring ourselves to photograph the ovens but they were around the monument area. I photographed the sky instead. I felt so nauseated I almost had to leave. There was this dust everywhere and I just was converting the dust to human remains in my mind because there was a mass grave just outside; it was just awful.

It was a very powerful experience, these monuments, and maintaining the camps as close to their original form as possible is the most effective, in our opinion.

Amazingly a group of prisoners managed to escape by digging a tunnel from under their barracks to outside the camps walls. There was an author as well... I can't remember his name right now but he is very famous...

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Photos

The gate with the infamous slogan "Work will set you free"
Gives you chills; entering willingly.

2 of 3 perimeter security features
3 of 3 was simply to shoot anyone who even got close

Toilets
Prisoners were given minutes to use the bathrooms in the morning and afternoon

Monument
Two prisoners carrying a deceased third

The sky above the ovens
Much more beautiful than what we were seeing on the ground.