Berlin - Sachsenhausen

After the slightly saddening walking tour yesterday, we decided to go full on losing-faith-in-humanity mode with a tour of Sachsenhausen concentration camp. This was one of the main concentration camps used by the Nazis, but you don't hear about it as much as others because instead of being liberated by the Allies, it was liberated and reused by the Soviets for their own political prisoners. The former administration for all concentration camps and the SS training buildings were nearby too.

Sachsenhausen was a sort of experimental camp, where, in addition to various "medical experiments" testing the various limits of human bodies (oxygen deprivation, freezing, drugs, ...), they experimented with more efficient ways to lay out the camp (fanning out from a central point so a mounted machine gunner could see everywhere), and ways of killing people (an elaborate fake health check-up so they could efficiently shoot non-resisting people and minimise traumatising the shooter).

I think it was the methodical planning and efficiency for murdering and torturing people that really got to me after a while. It was kind of disturbing, but will definitely be something I remember and appreciate having seen.Read more