While it's easy to go to Europe and just have fun, I feel very strongly that when you are in a country that had a concentration camp, it is very important to visit it. That is how we ensure that we never forget, and that history never repeats itself.
While in Berlin, we went to a new-to-me concentration camp, Sachsenhausen, which was at Oranienburg. It was my husband's first time touring a camp. Not easy or pleasant, but so important.
The first arrivals at Sachsenhausen were Polish Jews on Sept. 13, 1939. The Nazis had prepared for this by spreading the lie that these captives were Polish Jews who had killed Germans in Bromberg, just after the outbreak of the war.
Thus, when the first transport arrived at Oranienburg station, a crowd of people, men and women, including children, were waiting to see them. The spectators chanted "Kill the Bromberg murderers, kill the Polish snipers." They threw stones, bits of wood, nails, and dung from the street at the captives.
So much suffering on this land. Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, and then a Soviet Special Camp:
The Camp Commandant's house:
A small memorial park outside the camp's main gate:
The Sachsenhausen Camp's main entrance:
Inside the camp, the gravel rectangular plots were barracks:
The perimeter:
Another view of the markings of the original barracks:
A restroom inside one of the few preserved barracks:
Bunks:
A picture I took given the Shanghai connection to the prior year's vacation:
The camp prison:
Execution posts:
A memorial in the camp:
Indicating the nationalities of the victims who died there:
The shooting/execution pit:
Others' words are better:
The text is in the photo below (which I unfortunately don't know how to rotate):
No more words.
Yes, no words. These pictures say so much.
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