Insider Tours had a special offer available in May which provide an additional tour free when one had been taken. As we had done the Berlin Walk we opted to take the Sachsenhausen tour which was for 6 hours. We went by train to Oranienberg about 35 kms from Berlin. On the way we noticed three Anarchists stride through the train, dressed in a military type fashion of black boots and jackets,with the usual skinhead appearance and each sucking on a bottle of beer. They were on their way to the G8 Summit at Rostock where violent protests subsequently took place. Not nice looking people.
Sachsenhausen was built in the early 1930's as a "model" camp and housed political enemies of the Third Reich together with Jews, Gypies Homosexuals and criminals. It was not initially designed as an extermination camp like Auschwitz,although it did later build and use gas ovens. In 1945 the Russians (who occupied this part of Germany) took over the camp and used it in much the same manner (but without the killings) to imprison dissidents.
As we walked from the station to the camp we were told that in the early days, prisoners were marched ffrom the train to the camp through the township where citizens were encouraged to demonstrate by jeering, spitting and throwing rubbish at the prisoners. Later this was abandoned as giving too much evidence of maltreatment, and the train stopped further away and prisoners marched unseen through woodland.
Most of the original camp has been destroyed (by the Russians) and only recently has there been a move to establish a Memorial to those who suffered terrible privations and torure. A street of quiet suburban looking houses leads to the Camp entrance, and these houses were occupied by the SS guards during the life of the camp. A separate T shaped building was in fact the SS headquarters from where the "Final Solution" (that became the Holocaust) was launched. There was a separate POW Camp attached to the main camp and conditions there were somewhat better.One famous prisoner,Jimmie James,actually managed to escape several times and recently visited the site.
Food was minimal, clothing totally inadequate for the German Winter and hundreds of prisoners died from malnutrition and exhaustion from camp disciplines and work.The site of the original gallows still exists, as does the Z Complex where thousands were killed by shooting in the back of the neck or being gassed in the chambers. There are several mass graves indicated and several pits of human ashes now covered with memorial stones. It is not pleasant to see the remains of Z Station where the executions took place and be shown the step by step progress of prisoners from room to room leading to their eventual killing. In 1941 10,000 Russian Prisoners of War were executed by shooting and buried in a Mass grave.
Two of the remaining prison huts were recently fire bombed by Neo Nazis and the resultant damage has been left unrepaired to demonstrate the ongoing danger of these people. It was interestiing to hear Kenny (our previoous guide) tell of the harassment his tours were subjected to at times and that he had at one time armed himself with a Pepper spray!
No one could claim to have enjoyed this particular tour, it was a very sobering thought that a civilised nation like Germany could be so manipulated by evil men and set out to pursue acts of violence and inhumanity on such a scale.
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