Left this morning taking the train out to the city traveling towards the Sauschausen concentration memorial camp. Which back during WW2 used to be a concentration camp. It's free entry for people to go in, however I paid for a guided tour so I could learn things about the camp, etc. Which in the end was very well worth it!
This camp outside of Berlin was mainly used as a "concentration camp" so the main goal of the camp was to be a working camp. Not an "exile camp" compared to other camps such as auschwitz where sadly the only point of the camp was to kill people. At this camp between 30-70 thousand people died, they aren't sure on the exact number because the Natzis destroyed documents before the war ended. At the Aushwitz camp more than 1 million 1 hundred thousand people died.
With that being said prisoners were still treated beyond unfairly, they lived like animals, were punished for all kinds of things and the death toll number is still incredibly high.
I got to go through the gates to the camp and see the grounds. Where all the barracks (houses that the prisoners used to live in) used to stand. Now they have memorialized the houses with rocks and pebbles surrounding where the barracks once stood. Along with the barrack number. Only 2 original barracks still stand to this day, number 38 and 39. They have put new windows on them and the siding has been redone but the inside is completely authentic. The objects inside are not originals however such as the bunk beds, tables, toilets, etc.
We got to see all the guard towers against the fences which they said were 24/7 monitored by a solider with a machine gun. Their purpose was to watch for prisoners trying to escape.
Saw a lot more things such as the Natzi commanders houses and things around the camp they did. But the saddest thing I saw was the gas chamber and the stoves. The gas chambers were built to hold 30 people and once the prisoners were gassed they were then taken to the stoves across from the chamber and burned.
The tour was roughly 4 hours so a lot of information was given, I really recommend if you ever have the chance to visit one of these camps that you do because their is a lot of information given, so you learn a lot and it is a memorial now for all those that died in the camps in WW2.
The wall to the left is still the original wall that was there during the holocaust. On the other side of it is the camp.
Natzi commanders house
Entering the camp "ARBEIT MACHIT FRE" which means work and you will be free.
The concentration camp
Not the same fences but rebuilt to resemble the old ones that once stood there
The only 2 barracks left standing, and as you can see in front the stones representing the old barracks that once stood there
The original barracks where the prisoners lived
Guard towers
Where they shot prisoners instead of gassing them.
Statue to memorialize all those who died in the camp
The real gas chamber that once stood here, still same bricks around it.
Stoves used after the gassing
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