Germany Guide
Brandenburg
Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen
A beastly vehicle for two of the twentieth century's most powerful and oppressive regimes, the former concentration camp of Sachsenhausen has been preserved as the Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen (Sachsenhausen Memorial; daily: mid-March to mid-Oct 8.30am–6pm; mid-Oct to mid-March 8.30am–4.30pm; many exhibits close on Mon; free; 
www.gedenkstaette-sachsenhausen.de ). One of the Nazis' main camps and a prototype upon which others were based, it was never designed for mass extermination, but around half of the 220,000 prisoners who passed through its gates would never leave, as at the end of the war the camp was systematically used to kill thousands of Soviet POWs and Jewish prisoners on death marches.
To enter, visitors pass through an information centre where you can pick up the audio tour (€3) and a handy leaflet (€0.50). The camp's largest structure, the detailed New Museum charts the camp's origins. The camp proper begins beyond a gate adorned with the ominous sign Arbeit macht frei. Either side of the watchtower is the death strip, where prisoners would be shot without warning. The perimeter fence itself was a high-voltage electric one, typical of all the Nazi camps, and site of frequent inmate suicides. Among the few prison blocks that remain – though all are largely reconstructions – one houses a thoughtful museum that details the fortunes of selected camp prisoners. Beside it, the camp prison, from which internees seldom returned, has rudimentary cells used mostly for solitary confinement, where prisoners were fed just enough to keep them alive. Around the main parade ground, the two blocks at the heart of the complex were the prison kitchen and laundry. Inside the latter several films play, one particularly harrowing, one showing the camp on liberation.
Evidence shows that the camp was used for systematic executions, if not on the same scale as elsewhere. Information boards relate something of the lives of those killed and their murderers. You can also see the pits in which summary executions took place and a building in which inmates were sent for what they thought were medicals only to be shot in the nape of the neck. One exhibition in a guard tower investigates what the local populace knew and thought about the camp. Next door a modern, rather jumbled hall examines the Soviet Special Camp (1945–50) that existed here after the war. The Russians imprisoned 60,000 people with suspected Nazi links – though it's thought the majority were innocent – of which at least 12,000 died.