Sachsenhausen Tour

Hello fam and friends, I’m back online for another update! :) I’m picking up where I left you last, in July just after my parents flew home. July 13^th we docked for the last time in Warnemunde, Germany. I signed up for a tour to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It was opened in 1936 til the end of the Third Reich in May 1945. The camp was made for 10,000 prisoners, but in the end it held 40,000.  Our tour guide began by talking about November 8^th, 1923, when Hitler attempted his first takeover.  She told us how Hitler was arrested and wrote a book while in jail, about his plans if he had power. It’s called Mein Kampf and it was given to every newlywed couple, making it one of the most widely distributed books of the time, occupying nearly every household.

The sign on the way into the camp translated to “work makes you free”, a cynical statement clearly emphasizing the ruthless behavior of these officers of the Schutzstaffel (also known as the Protection Squadron or the SS, it was an organization of  soldiers providing security for the Nazi party). These officials had wives and families that lived on the very same land as the concentration camp. In fact, Hitler had a club for children, brainwashing began as young as 10 years old and was advertised as an exclusive honor. Our tour guide showed us the Green Monster, a large building in the middle of the land used for officer’s meals, as their casino, and for their glamorous parties. Prisoners brought to the camp were forced to work there, serving their captures.  

Jewish prisoners were not allowed to go to the hospital, and the mentally challenged were kept there for medical experiments. We walked along the border of the camp, near the barbed wire fences and beneath the guard posts. There was a path separating the fence from the grass, called the neutral zone, where they would shoot with no warning. One guard threw a prisoner’s hat into the neutral zone and demanded he go get it, he was the first prisoner shot. The barracks were originally made for 150 prisoners, but by the end it held 400, with only eight toilets open for one hour in the morning, one hour at night.

Musicians were allowed their instruments, however, the officers stole several personal artifacts of the prisoners. They were allowed to write home every 3^rd month, but only in German. There was a prison inside the camp for politicians and intellectuals to keep an uprising from happening amongst the prisoners. Some people who tried to assassinate Hitler were brought to this prison, including the man who planted a bomb at a restaurant November 8^th. Hitler left 13 minutes earlier then planned so he survived this attempt. The bomber was kept alive in prison for a show trial set for after the war ended.

Next to the prison were posts to hand people by their arms; they would suffocate just like Jesus when he was crucified. There was a shoe-testing track around the middle of the camp. It was a 40km walk or run around the entirety. The people forced to have this job were hand picked by the Sturmabteilung (or the SA, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi party), usually intellectuals to break down their integrity. Since there was a lack in leather, the Nazi’s needed to test other material for the soles of their shoes.  The prisoners had to do certain activities like an army chant while running with rucks over various surfaces and in all kinds of weather.

The Jewish prisoners were forced to make counterfeit pounds and dollars to destroy the enemies’ economy. These workers were top secret and were killed before the camp was closed. Upon entering the camp you received your scrap of clothing with a colored triangle to identify your crime. Red triangles were for the communists; the homosexuals wore pink.

The general idea of the camp was “work until you die”, but often times officers would issue a massacre. A man named Rockoff ordered 800 men to stand outside in the bitter February weather, while he watched from the comforts of the Green Monster. 150 people died that day. There were “cultural events” where the gallows were placed right next to the Christmas tree and public executions occurred. Jehovah’s witnesses were shot on after another for being passive in the war industry.

We moved on to the execution trenches and the neck shot facilities, where soldiers would point a gun thru a hold in the wall to shoot people thru the neck. They never even had to look at the people they were killing, to look them in the eye and see their terror. 10,000 Soviet POWs were killed from these facilities. This was the point I could no longer hold back my tears. There were pictures of people who were killed here, some my age or younger. Their ashes are still there; I was walking amongst the graves of so these people. I believe everyone needs to visit somewhere like this. I think it is important for people to feel the pain I felt just hearing the stories, and seeing the faces of the victims. 

Concentration camps were actually not a German idea. There were similar camps in Cuba and South America back in the 1900’s. This camps’ crematory was built for 400 people a day, compared to Auschwitz where 5,000 bodies were burnt a day, with industrial lifts to bring corpses from the gas chambers to be burned. The Death camps were in Poland to not “taint” Germany. In 1941, 15 men talked for 90 minutes about how to kill 11 million people.

And still to this day we have neo-Nazis all around us. In 1992, two men snuck in and burnt the Jewish museum down. There are still people who deny this genocide ever happened, HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE!?! Even though my tour thru this concentration camp was several months ago, I can still picture is so clearly and I can remember how strange I felt. It was eerie; but it was a feeling like this can’t be real. This was surely a set for a horror movie, it never actually happened. It hurt my heart to think how these innocent people were tortured and murdered, and so many monsters helped first hand, or witnessed it all but ignored it.  Our tour guide told us it was not healthy to understand this.

On our way out of the camp and into Berlin, she spoke about the Crystal Night, a series of coordinated attacks again Jewish citizens of Nazi Germany and parts of Austria following the assassination of a German diplomat by a German-born Polish Jew. The SA militant and non-Jewish civilians carried out the attack, while German authorities looked on without intervening. At least 91 Jews were killed in these attacks, 30,000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Homes and schools were broken into, ransacked, and then demolished. Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed and more than 1,000 synagogues were burned in retaliation. She also talked about the Iron Curtain; the most notable borders marked by the Berlin wall and Checkpoint Charlie. The wall stood for 28 years.

After this life-changing tour, we got to see the new Germany, a world that will hopefully never repeat the devastating and unforgivable tragedies of the past. I actually really enjoy the bustling city of Berlin; it has hidden beauties that flourish amid the sorrow. The food is just one great example! We stopped at an adorable restaurant beneath the subway called Brauhaus Lemke. I ate a DELICIOUS veggie meal of potatoes, broccoli, cheese and some sort of sauce, followed by apple streusel with vanilla ice cream. My mouth is watering just remembering it!!! Back on the bus we saw a “running pub” which is a paddling bike you drink beer on!!!! What a great way to see the city while drinking with all your friends! Not to mention the exercise ;) We passed the Jewish quarter and the museums were stunning, I definitely want to come back to explore that area!