Day 6: Berlin: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Our Hostel: John's Oriental Hostel..

The kitchen where we had our breakfast..

After breakfast, we decided to drive all the way north to the outskirts of Berlin to see the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at Oranienburg.. how can one come to Germany w/o visiting its concentration camps.. It was a very long drive, abt an hour plus again.. The entry to the memorial was free but one could get an audio guide for 3 euros plus a detailed map.. since we r here n i tink we will be lost w/o the audio guide, so why not.. seems pretty good deal.. i left the lady at the counter my driving license as guarantee for our audio guides.. We were told the contents of the audio guide is abt 4 hrs long.. woah..

Camp street : This is the street where the prisoners r escorted to the concentration camp from the S-Bahn station.. the S-Bahn is like the Metro station of Berlin... the SS guards used this public transport to send the prisoners from central Berlin to here.. along the way, the prisoners will pass by the town of Oranieburg where the residents r encouraged to boo n throw things at them.. however after some time, the guards find it too much of a hassle n a waste of time as they were often delayed by the residents' activities.. they decided on another route with a much quieter entry..




THe aerial view of the camp.. (its the triangular shaped structure)


The infamous Tower A.. there r several watchtowers in the camp.. they r all labelled in an alphabetical order starting with this initimidating tower called Tower A.. All prisoners have to pass thru Tower A to enter the camp.. When the camp was first built, Tower A is located such that it has a very good view of the entire camp n a machine gun was mounted on top such that everywhere within the camp is within its firing range.. however, with further expansion of the camp to accomodate more prisoners, Tower A no longer had a centralised location..

The rest of the watchtowers were labelled Tower B, C, D.. n so on.. There is a place called Area Z in the camp.. where executions n cremations were carried out.. so there is this sad saying of that prisoners come in from Tower A and exit at Area Z...



There r a few layers of security to prevent prisoners from escaping.. As can be seen in the pictures below.. there r the remains of an electrified fence n markings indicating the forbidden zone.. if any prisoner were to have any part of their body over the zone, they will be shot at immeidately by the tower guards.. the guards were given bonuses if they managed to shoot anyone crossing the forbidden zone.. life was so miserable here that some of the camp guards would actually encourage the inmates to run towards the fence to end it all..




This is the ground in front of the roll call area where inmates were hanged for major offences.. The "guilty" prisoners will be hanged in front of the entire cohort to serve as a warning..



The very cramped conditions of the camps... the camp often accomodated more than 10 times its original capacity..


The Bathrooms in a prisoners barrack


The storeroom in a prisoners barrack...


The Lavatory in a prisoners barrack




The 3-tier beds..

At one time, when the camp was too overcrowded, the guards removed the beds n got all the prisoners to sleep on the floor.. even when they all slept on the floor, its still very very cramped..its impossible for the prisoners to turn around during their sleep unless everyone turns at the same time.. if any of the prisoners were to get up to the toilet, they may risked losing their place to sleep when they come back..




The exterior of the barracks..



Prisoners' clothes..

The various labels.. red inverted triangle stands for political prisoners.. Jews have another yellow upright triangle superimposed on the red inverted triangle making a Star of David...


Most of the barracks were demoliahed leaving only a few left to hold exhibits of life in the concentration camps.. these stone slabs with numbers labelled on them represent the number of the barracks originally at this position..


The prison cell.. this is the place where inmates who tried escape or did other activities that were deemed bad by the guards were locked up in..


The solitary confinement room where they will be locked up with no light for several days or even weeks or months..

The rest of the prison blocks were demolished as well leaving behind their foundation stones..

The poles where inmates were hung to be beaten up or just forced to stand in the sun and rain..

This is a memorial built for this concentration camps for political prisoners.. Note the Red Inverted Triangles on the memorial.. it means that this memorial commemorates political prisoners n each triangle represents a country where the prisoners came from.. its sad that the memorial takes no notice of prisoners sent here because they were Jews..


Tower E.. This is a tower where ppl could go in n listen to stories of the SS guards n the townpeople around the camp..



The prisoners were sometimes sent to nearby towns to work in factories n they were marched with armed escorts to those areas.. along the way, some Germans may try to help by slipping them some bread or good food.. there is this story of a German woman who tried to help the prisoners by slipping them food n one day suddenly from teh crowd of prisoners, someone threw her this wooden trojka, a form of Russian toy, apparently to thank her for the food.. another story tells of a prisoner who made use of engine oil to draw a painting for the German who helped him.. the picture below shows the trojka n the painting..


Watchtower..

Stone barracks at the other side of the concentration camp..


We went around the camp n explored the other areas.. there was this morgue which felt super chilling.. we entered n felt the cold air n we all walked immediately upon feeling it at the same time.. The weather is also not very good.. windy n cold n drizzling.. very befitting of the environment we r in..

After this visit, we went back to the main building where we loaned our audio guide from.. when i asked to get my driving license whcih i left as guarantee for the audio guides, the stupid lady at the counter couldnt find it.. she misplaced it n we wasted the next half an hour trying to find it.. she kept saying she didnt receive my card.. but she was the one who i passed it to.. she had a file containing all the cards taht were left as guarantee but apparently mine was not there.. it was a while b4 she saw it slotted somewhere on her desk.. stupid woman.. i was worried that she had lost it but at the same time i was planning on how mcuh to ask from her in compensation should she really lose it.. i was tinking 50 euros (abt 100+ Sing dollars) haha enuff to replace my card in Singapore n also some for me to spend.. haha but in the end she found it so too bad loh..

We drove out towards central Berlin from where we will head towards our Lepizig where we had booked a hostel for the nite.. We did some chop chop sightseeing.. we went to take pics with the Victory Column..,



Some ppl will try to wash the windscreen of cars which had stopped at the traffic light.. n then demand a fee for doing so..


The Russian memorial near the Victory column..

The tanks placed at the memorial were one of the first to enter Berlin..

SC's head gonna be crushed by one of the tank

My big gun..


Our car.. pretty small..



We proceeded next to another famous landmark of Berlin.. a bombed out church that had been left as it is as remembrance for WW2..




Its interior..



A new structure built by the side of the bombed out church.. this is where ppl got for their weekly service..



A car billboard advertisement..



We drove next to Potzdamer Platz where we tried to take some pics.. but it rained pretty heavily so we proceeded straight to Lepizig to spend the nite..