A guard tower and section
of the wall in
the camp. Note the white knobs on the concrete poles
here. This was the electrified barbed wire fence.
Many people unable to endure their suffering any longer committed
suicide by running up to the fence and grabbing hold, thereby
electrocuting themselves to death.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
<>
Sachsenhausen concentration camp was built in the Summer of 1936 by
prisoners from the Esterwegen camp in the Emsland and is located
approximately twenty miles to the North of Berlin near Oranienburg. It
was designed by the Nazi architect Kuiper as the "model concentration
camp" in the shape of a triangle with the barracks laid out in a fan
shape. The prisoners could be watched from every single point, with a
total of seven guard towers. At the main entrance is Tower A which had
a heavy machine gun in it. The large gate underneath displays the
words: "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work will make you free). This camp was intended for "serious
criminals" and "Enemies of the Reich" and became a model for later
camps. SS guards were trained here on a large scale as well
as future commandants for other camps. Hideous men, such as Adolf
Eichmann and Rudolf Höss (later the commandant of Auschwitz)
were also trained in Sachsenhausen.
In 1938, SS
Obergruppenführer Theodor
Eicke Concentration Camp Inspectorate, moved his headquarters from
Berlin to Oranienburg and set up his administration in the so-called "T
building" located in front of the camp. The city of Oranienburg was now
called "The City of the SS" like Nürnberg was "The
City of
the Reich Party Conference". However, it soon became the city of terror
and unforgettable crimes against humanity. Eicke was a terribly brutal
man who taught his guards that sympathy and compassion for people were
signs of weakness. He made sure that his guards were especially brutal
as well. In the early years, the prisoners were Germans, mostly
political, such as Socialists and Communists. Social Democrats and
others of the German Resistance were also interned here. Men such as
the famous Pastor Martin Niemöller, Jurist Hans von Dohnanyi,
Julius Leber, Carlo Mierendorff and Fritz Elsas, former Mayor of Berlin
were interned in Sachsenhausen. Dohnanyi was hanged here on April 9,
1945 after two years of imprisonment. Later
on, Jews,
Christians, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, pacifists, homeless and
homosexuals were also imprisoned. Tens of thousands of executions took
place in Sachsenhausen by firing squad or hanging.
In October 1940, 183 Polish
Professors from
Krakow were shot. After Hitler invaded Russia on June 22,
1941,
thousands of Russian soldiers were sent here. At least 12,000 Russian
prisoners of war were shot. By now, Germans were a minority as their
numbers were overwhelmingly out populated by many foreign prisoners
from the Nazi occupied countries of Europe. As the war went on, food
became short in supply and thousands died of starvation. The hunger was
always great and would become a constant torment for empty stomachs.
During the period of 1943-1944 the bread ration was 350 grams. From
1944-1945, it was further reduced to 250 grams. The SS camp
doctor, Baumkötter testified at his trial
in October
1947 how dismal it was: "The rations were bad , very bad.
Above
all proteins, the most important form of sustenance, were lacking. In
this way the body slowly but surely began to waste away."
Barracks which were only
designed for a
capacity of maybe 400 prisoners, soon became so crowded that they would
hold up *********** Diseases became rampant in the camp do to
poor hygiene, overcrowding and lack of nutrition and medicine. Typhus,
dysentery and typhoid broke out and spread like wild fire killing
thousands. Between February and October 1942, the Jews were evacuated
from Sachsenhausen and sent to the death camps in Poland. In the Spring
of 1942, a crematorium was built and in mid-March 1943, a small gas
chamber was added. This section was called Station Z by the SS. The
letter Z, of course, being the last letter of the alphabet was a Nazi
euphemism for execution and the prisoners last stop on the train to
death! Thousands of Russian prisoners of war were gassed here
with Zyklon B (Prussic Acid). Entire transports
were sent
straight to the gas chamber where they perished. To this day, no one
knows how many were sent to the chamber, because they weren't
registered in the camp records.
Next to Station Z was a pit
for shooting prisoners by firing squad. Prisoners in Sachsenhausen were
also worked to death (extermination through labor) doing back breaking
work in the nearby so-called "Klinker Ziegel Werke" (Clinker brick
works) or in the armaments factories. They worked from sun up to sun
down, for up to 12 hours a day. If a prisoner died during labor, then
it was the responsibility of fellow inmates to bring the dead body back
to the camp. Everyone had to be accounted for, even the dead! At dawn,
the prisoners were summoned for roll call. This lasted a long time due
to the high number of inmates. Prisoners had to do this everyday,
regardless of the weather conditions, be it rain or snow. They would
many times have to wait in the cold for many hours, some without shoes.
If the guards made a mistake, which often happened, they had to start
all over again. This enraged them and they would beat the
prisoners. One day in November 1940, the prisoners stood in
the bitter cold for over twenty hours!
Like Dachau and Auschwitz,
Sachsenhausen too became a center for the SS doctors to carry out their
hideous human medical experiments out of their sick curiosity under the
guise of "Science". These experiments in fact, actually had no
scientific or medical merit and were mostly designed to cause extreme
pain and agony for the poor victims, which often times led to death.
Inside the infirmary, many people were murdered with poisonous phenol
injections to the heart. Limbs were amputated
unnecessarily and without anesthesia. Organs were removed just to see
if a person could live without them and if so, for how long. Beneath the infirmary, was the morgue where the SS stored hundreds
of bodies used for dissections for pathology.
<>
I must say that when I was in
this dimly lit room back on April 11, 1999, it was a day I will never
forget! I remember I was alone there and the feeling was so darkly evil
and creepy that after a minute of walking around the place, I suddenly
felt that I had to get out of there and fast! So I ran up the ramp and
didn't look back.<>
<>
As
the front
advanced, the concentration camps in the East were emptied
and
the inmates were transported to Sachsenhausen where many of them were
murdered shortly before the end of the war. Early on the morning on
April 21, 1945, the SS evacuated the camp and marched 30,000
prisoners in columns of 500 on a Todesmarsch (Death march) in the
direction of the Bay of Lübeck. Their plan was to drown them
in
the sea, but it failed. Those too weak or sick who couldn't walk fast
enough to keep up with the others were shot and left by the roadside.
When Sachsenhausen was liberated by Russian and Polish units on April
22, 1945, approximately 3,000 people were left in the camp, which
included doctors and nurses who stayed behind to help the sick and
dying. In 1961, the camp became a permanent memorial to the over
******** people who lost their lives as a result of Nazi crimes. Many
people from nations all over Europe suffered and were murdered in
Sachsenhausen concentration camp. It is a sacred place which should be
preserved for future generations to learn about the terrible things
which happened here.
-Greg
McClelland-
"Mankind is on the point of bringing to an end a story l<>
"Mankind is on the point of bringing to an end a story lasting many
thousands of years and opening up a new chapter, the first human one.
It is a good feeling to have contributed to this development in a small
way. Death is a natural thing. All living things must die, but whoever
gives his life for our cause makes his death a noble deed. With all its
brutalities, such a death is beautiful because it is not in vain."
<>Last
letter written by prisoner
Martin Schwantes
Executed in Sachsenhausen concentration camp
--February 1945
<><
>"For this was but a
prelude; for when books are burnt, human-beings
will
be burnt in the end."
<><>
<><>--Heinrich Heine<><>
<>< German
Jewish poet, 1820
<>"M"Mank"ind is on the
"For
this was but a prelude; for when books
are burnt,an-beings will be burnt in te
en
©
Greg McClelland 2003-2005
