Sachsenhausen

Model of Sachsenhausen

The rainy weather last weekend was appropriate enough for my Sunday excursion; I joined a group from the Goethe Institute to tour a concentration camp in Oranienburg, just outside of Berlin proper. Sachsenhausen was a model camp for the Nazis, perfectly laid out within the bounds of an equilateral triangle, and displayed to visiting ambassadors and rulers (even through 1945!). The gates are chilling enough, with their ironic slogan: "Arbeit Macht Frei." About 100,000 persons were murdered within the precincts. More died here after the Soviets and the DDR took it over as their own Speziallager No. 7.

Entrance to the concentration camp

Our guide was an elderly gentleman who enriched his store of historical knowledge with personal accounts from his experiences during World War II. He must have grown up quickly between the age of 8 and 16. If I understood correctly, he was sent off to stay with relatives or friends while his parents were interred at Sachsenhausen. They survived the camp, unlike many others.

We had a large tour group and since our guide tended to go into more detail than my language skills could keep up with, I couldn't catch everything he said. But I did grasp the enormity of his commitment to telling these stories and their personal resonance. At certain moments, he spoke more slowly and would look off in the distance at nothing in particular. I'm sure his memories filled that void with more than I will ever struggle to make sense of in this world.




It was the sheer number of stories that made our visit to the historic and commemorative site so overwhelming. I think this was the educational strategy of the museum, as well! All of the outbuildings, some original and some reconstructed, displayed pictures and information about the people who lived, worked, labored, and perished at Sachsenhausen. The exhibits focused on sustaining individual identities beneath a crushing load of numbers (numbers deported, abused, put to death). Yet the amount of names, people, stories (each one different and unique) was too much to take in...

Our walking tour also became rather long. After we stopped at each of the monuments dedicated to different groups of prisoners in the wooded area outside the main camp, and got through the front gate, it was already 1.30 or so (We met at 9.30 in the morning for our Ausflug!). I was getting chilled by the rain, so I split off from the group at Barracks 38 and 39 in order to finish looking at the grounds on my own. Louise and I refueled on kaffee und kuchen, then explored the rest of the camp.

Barracks 38 & 39

T-shaped Prison

One of the prison cells at Sachsenhausen

Memorial sculpture with fresh roses at the Crematorium

As I rode the U-Bahn back to my apartment, I sat across from an elderly gentleman. He was dressed precisely and sat erect, although his eyes didn't focus clearly on anything. They seemed clouded by cateracts. Once more, however, I was struck by the realization of how much he had seen during his lifetime. The modern world rushing past must seem to be an entirely different world from what he used to know. It made me wonder what the world would be like when I have experienced that many years of my own life.