SACHSENHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP
Today we visited Sachsenhausen concentration camps where thousands of people belonging to groups disliked by the Nazis' were sent. We were given a guided tour around the site.
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Built in the Summer of 1936 some 70 years ago Sachsenhausen initially facilitated the removal of "antisocial" elements as Berlin hosted the spectacular Olympics held that year.
More than 200 000 were imprisoned here by the Nazis of which some 50 000 were brutally murdered - as opposed to Auschwitz which served the policy of racial genocide, Sachsenhausen victims were a mix of political opponents and then only later groups defined as racially or biologically inferior - increasingly from the newly occupied territories of Nazi dominated Europe.
The Sachsenhausen concentration camp mainly held political prisoners throughout World War II. Prominent prisoners include Joseph Stalin's oldest son Yakov Dzhugashvili, murderer Herschel Grynszpan, Paul Reynaud the penultimate Prime Minister of France, the wife and children of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, and several enemy soldiers and political dissidents.
Sachsenhausen was a labor camp outfitted with several subcamps, a gas chamber, and a medical experimentation area. Prisoners were treated harshly, fed sparingly, and killed openly. Those held captive in Sachsenhausen were the men and women which the Third Reich wanted dead, not just because of their religion, but because of their political beliefs and their power over those who listened to them.
STATION Z (Where many people were killed through gassing or shooting)
Much of the camp has been destroyed now but a few buildings remain including two sleeping quarters......
Bed bunks in one of the living quarters
GUIDEDTOUR OF OLYMPIC STADIUM, OLYMPISHER PLATZ
EVENING MEAL
STAGE SHOW- SPEECHLESS AT TIPI
