Intense visit - Sachsenhausen concentration camp｜Germany

The meeting point is next to the New Synagogue, once a centre of Jewish life in Berlin in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Here, we discuss questions of integration and how the November pogroms of 1938 marked the first steps toward mass murder. This turning point also had a profound impact on the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
During the train ride to the town of Oranienburg, there will be enough time to provide an overview of how Hitler rose to power.
We will walk through the town to the camp—following the same route prisoners were once forced to take.
On the way, we will see the remaining building of the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps and talk about Sachsenhausen’s special role within a system of more than 1,000 camps.
A large overview map will give you an impression of how the camp’s “business model” expanded in just nine years.
You will enter the camp through the cynical “Arbeit macht frei” gate and, from the roll-call square, gain a sense of the camp’s vast scale.
We will pass the shoe-testing track and see the prison that held Hitler’s personal detainees.
We will visit original barracks and pass places of everyday life and terror, including the infirmary—a site of cruel medical experiments.
We will visit the sombre “Station Z”, the site of mass murder and the crematorium where more than 50,000 bodies were burned.
More than 80 years have passed, yet many traces remain.
Toward the end of the tour, we will look more closely at the complex development of public awareness and memory. You will gain an understanding of how remembrance culture has changed over three generations, and why the search for answers to “How could this happen?” has engaged people around the world. We will discuss psychological research exploring how so many individuals came to participate willingly in these crimes.
After about two and a half hours on site, it will be time to make our way back. We will take the train again, and I will accompany you back to the meeting point. If you are heading to a different location after the tour, I will gladly help you find the best connection.
You are welcome to stay longer at the site on your own, or you can arrange an extension of the tour with me.