An empty camp

We wrapped up our short week in Berlin by heading out to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp before heading home.

Sachsenhausen was a model camp. SS officers trained here and then often went on to oversee other concentration camps. This model camp started out significantly less sinister than it finished. Initially it was more focused on proper criminals and prisoners of war.

It was a warm, sunny day. We stopped by the front desk. The museum is free but we bought a map for a nominal fee. And off on our self guided tour we went. First past the (now closed) SS section - quarters, mess hall, administrative headquarters. Then we walked through the main gate into the concentration camp. In the open roll call area, the expansiveness of the camp becomes more apparent.

Once through the gate, looking at the space that was hell on earth for 200,000 Nazi prisoners the air feels heavy. Somehow the open space is incredibly oppressive. The lack of breeze adds to the oppressive air, making it challenging to breath. Is it possible the weight of misery still hangs in the air of this space?

When it opened in 1936, they trucked their dead prisoners into Berlin to be cremated. After an auto accident involved one of their trucks and dead bodies on the road, they decided to build their own small crematory. For several years, family members could request the ashes of their deceased relatives - so long as the deceased inmate had been a Germany citizen. (The chances of it actually being said relative was slim, but I'm sure it helped many a family.)
In 1943 Sachsenhausen really embraced the role of mass extermination. It wasn't until seven years after opening its gates that camp officials built the gas chamber showers and larger ovens that Hitler and the SS are so famous for. The remains are still there. A sculpture of remembrance stands near the entrance, surrounded by candles and flowers of all shapes and sizes. Is it possible that the air here is even more thick, more difficult to breath? Perhaps it is the weight of loss, the wrong still hanging in the air.

What a horrible way for the world to learn such a devastating lesson. And yet, somehow so many of us have already forgotten much of it.