Sachsenhausen Memorial Concentration Camp

Day 3 of my 2-week road trip

Tropical Islands – Sachsenhausen – Berlin– Dresden – Prague – Vienna – Devin Castle – Sandberg – Bratislava – Lake Balaton – Bokodi – Budapest

History of Sachsenhausen

1936 – 1945

The Nazis established Sachsenhausen in the summer of 1936 as a concentration camp for political prisoners. It was one of Germany’s biggest concentration camps. More than 200,000 people passed through Sachsenhausen. Sadly, tens of thousands of them died due to starvation, disease, forced labour and maltreatment, or they were murdered. Before World War II broke out, Sachsenhausen was full of Jews and German Communists. After 1938, the composition of the prison population began to change. The people that were sent to Sachsenhausen were imprisoned for racial reasons. These began to outnumber the political prisoners. When the war ended, the prisoners were set free. Unfortunately, thousands of prisoners died on what they call the ‘death marches’.

1945 – 1950

In August 1945, 3 months after World War II had ended, Sachsenhausen had turned into a Soviet Special Camp. The camp was run by the Soviet Secret Service. They held mostly minor Nazi functionaries, but also people who were politically undesirable had been arbitrarily arrested, or been sentenced by Soviet military tribunals. They used everything at Sachsenhausen to accept the crematorium and extermination facilities. By March 1950 when the camp closed, more than 60,00 people had been imprisoned, 12,000 of them had died due to malnutrition or disease.

1961 – 1990

In 1961, the Militarised People’s Police and the National People’s Army of the GDR converted Sachsenhausen into a national memorial site. Instead of preserving the remaining original structures, they choose to create a memorial complex that would symbolise the victory of anti-fascism over fascism. They kept only a few of the original buildings.

1993 onwards

Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum joined the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation in January 1993. It is a self-governing public trust, funded equally by the state of Brandenburg and the Federal Republic of Germany.

My Visit to Sachsenhausen

We only got chance to spend half a day at Sachsenhausen. We visited it on the day we left Tropical Islands, as it was part of our 2-week road trip from Berlin to Budapest. Personally, I would recommend you give yourself a full day to look around. There is a lot of walking involved as the grounds are a lot bigger then I thought they would be. If you choose to get the audio headset, there is a lot of listening to do and a few museums to walk around and read too.

Location

It’s located 22 miles north of Berlin in a place called Oranienburg. We had our hire car and used our sat nav for directions as we travelled from Tropical Islands, taking us just over an hour. If your driving from the centre of Berlin, take the A10 (the Berlin ring road) to the Birkenweder exit and drive towards Oranienburg, following signs to the memorial. There is a free car park outside the entrance.

If your planning on getting there by train from the centre of Berlin, you have a few options:

Regional RE 5 train from Hauptbahnhof (the main station) to Oranienburg station, taking 25 mins.

Regional RE 12 train from Lichtenberg station to Oranienburg station, taking 30 mins.

S-bahn, line S1 (Wannsee-Oranienburg) from Friedrichstrasse station to Oranienburg station, taking 50 mins.

Admissions

Admission is free. However, I highly recommend paying €3 for an audio headset. They are available to English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish. They also do offer guided tours if you prefer to do that. I would recommend booking this in advance.