Sachsenhausen concentration camp
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Sachsenhausen (IPA: [zaksənˈhaʊzən]) was a concentration camp in Germany, operating between 1936 and 1950. It was named after the Sachsenhausen quarter, part of the town of Oranienburg. The camp is sometimes referred to as Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. The name "Sachsen Hausen" means "Saxon's Houses" when translated literally.
From 1936 to 1945 it was run by the National Socialist regime in Germany as a camp for mainly political prisoners, from 1945 to spring of 1950 it was run by the Stalinist Soviet occupying forces as "Special Camp No. 7" for mainly political prisoners.
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[edit] Sachsenhausen under the Germans
The camp was established in 1936. It was located at the edge of Berlin, which gave it a position among the German concentration camps: the administrative centre of all concentration camps was located in Oranienburg, and Sachsenhausen became a training centre for SS officers (who would often be sent to oversee other camps afterwards). Executions took place at Sachsenhausen, especially those that were Soviet POWs. While some Jews were executed at Sachsenhausen and many died there, the Jewish inmates of the camp were relocated to Auschwitz in 1942. Sachsenhausen was not designed as a death camp—instead, the systematic mass murder of Jews was conducted primarily in camps to the east.
On the front entrance gates to Sachsenhausen is the infamous slogan Arbeit Macht Frei (German: "Work Makes [You] Free"). About 200,000 people passed through Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945. Some 100,000 inmates died there from exhaustion, disease, malnutrition or pneumonia from the freezing cold. Many were executed or died as the result of brutal medical experimentation. According to an article published on December 13, 2001 in The New York Times, "In the early years of the war the SS practiced methods of mass killing there that were later used in the Nazi death camps. Of the roughly 30,000 wartime victims at Sachsenhausen, most were Russian prisoners of war, among them Joseph Stalin's oldest son.[1]
Amongst those executed were the commandos from Operation Musketoon and Grand Prix motor racing champion, William Grover-Williams, also John Godwin RNVR, a British Naval Sub-Lieutenant who managed to shoot dead the commander of his firing party, for which he was mentioned in dispatches posthumously. Over 100 Dutch resistance fighters were executed at Sachsenhausen. The wife and children of Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, members of the Wittelsbach family, were held in the camp from October 1944 to April 1945, before being transferred to the Dachau concentration camp. Reverend Martin Niemöller, a critic of the Nazis and author of the poem First they came..., was also a prisoner at the camp. Herschel Grynszpan, whose act of assassination was used by Joseph Goebbels to initiate the Kristallnacht pogrom, was moved in and out of Sachshausen since his capture on the 18'th of July 1940 and until September 1940 when he was moved to Magdeburg.[2] Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera was imprisoned there intil October 1944, and two of his brothers died there.
Sachsenhausen was the site of the largest counterfeiting operation ever. The Nazis forced Jewish artisans to produce forged American and British currency. Over one billion pounds in fake cash was recovered. The Germans were unable to put their plan into action. This fake currency is considered very valuable by collectors.
Many women were among the inmates of Sachsenhausen and its subcamps. According to SS files, more than 2,000 women lived in Sachsenhausen, guarded by female SS staff (Aufseherin). Camp records show that there was one male SS soldier for every ten inmates and for every ten male SS there was a woman SS. Several subcamps for women were established in Berlin, including in Neukolln.
With the advance of the Red Army in the spring of 1945, Sachsenhausen was prepared for evacuation. On April 20–21, the camp's SS staff ordered 33,000 inmates on a forced march westward. Most of the prisoners were physically exhausted and thousands did not survive this death march; those who collapsed en route were shot by the SS. On April 22, 1945, the camp's remaining 3,000 inmates, including 1,400 women were liberated by the Soviet Red Army and Polish 2nd Infantry Division of Ludowe Wojsko Polskie.
[edit] The camp under the Soviets
In August 1945 the Soviet Special Camp No. 7 was moved to the area of the former concentration camp. Nazi functionaries were held in the camp, as were political prisoners and inmates sentenced by the Soviet Military Tribunal. By 1948, Sachsenhausen, now renamed Special Camp No. 1, was the largest of three special camps in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. The 60,000 people interned over five years included 6,000 German officers transferred from Western Allied camps. Others were Nazi functionaries, anti-Communists and Russians, including Nazi collaborators and soldiers who contracted sexually transmitted diseases in Germany.[1]
By the closing of the camp in the spring of 1950, at least 12,000 had died of malnutrition and disease.[citation needed]
[edit] The Sachsenhausen camp today
At present, the site of the Sachsenhausen camp is open to the public. Several buildings and structures survive or have been reconstructed, including guard towers, the camp entrance, crematory ovens and the camp barracks.
A large Soviet-style memorial obelisk was erected in 1961. Following German reunification, the camp was entrusted to a foundation who opened a museum on the site. The museum features artwork made by inmates and, an impressive 30cm high pile of gold teeth (taken by the Germans from the prisoners), scale models of the camp, pictures, documents and other artifacts illustrating life in the camp. Further exhibits are expected to open in late 2007, including the restored camp kitchen. The administrative buildings from which the entire German concentration camp network was run have been preserved and can also be seen.
Following the discovery in 1990 of mass graves from the Soviet period, a separate museum has been opened documenting the camp's Soviet-era history, on an adjacent site.
[edit] Gallery
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Soviet Liberation Memorial - full size - Nov 2005 |
Sachsenhausen 2006.jpg
Jewish barracks and museum, 2006 |
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Memorial |
SachsenhausenEntrance.JPG
Entrance, July 2006 |
SachsenTower.jpg
One of the many guarding towers, May 2007 |
UniformSachsen.jpg
The uniform the prisoners were supposed to wear, on display. May 2007 |
Pathology Block over Mortuary Cellar 2007.jpg
Pathology Block over Mortuary Cellar used for storing bodies prior to cremation |
Infirmary Barracks 2007.jpg
These were the Infirmary Barracks, later used for medical experimentation and now housing an exhibition. |
SS Troop Barracks 2007.jpg
The green building beyond the entrance gate is the remnants of the SS troop barracks |
Sachsenhausen Entrance Tower 2007.jpg
Entrance viewed from the Roll Call Area |
Sachsenhausen Roll Call Area 2007.jpg
Wall around Roll Call Area indicating positions of barrack blocks |
Sachsenhausen Execution Trench 2007.jpg
Execution Trench |
[edit] Related article
[edit] Sources, references and endnotes
- ^ a b http://www.idoc-human-renewal.org/gelbe/readingroom/horrors.html
- ^ Herschel_Grynszpan#Grynszpan_versus_Goebbels
- Falk Pingel, Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust, New York: Macmillan, 1990, vol. 4, p.1321-1322. Photo
- General information on the Sachsenhausen concentration camp web site of the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation: Memorial and Museum Sachsenhausen
- Foot & Langley, 'MI9 - Escape and Evasion 1939 - 1945', Book Club Associates, 1979 ISBN 0-316-28840-3
[edit] Further reading
- Finn, Gerhard: Sachsenhausen 1936-1950 : Geschichte eines Lagers. Bad Münstereifel: Westkreuz-Verlag, 1988. ISBN 3-922131-60-3
- Sachsenhausen travel guide from Wikitravel
[edit] External links
- History of the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg camp on the Jewish Virtual Library part of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
- Sachsenhausen among the Nazi camps (Germany), with list of its subcamps on a site is hosted by JewishGen, Inc
- Photos and some history of Sachsenhausen by scrapbookpages.com
- Ex-Death Camp tells story of Nazi and Soviet horrors by New York Times
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