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German Killing & Atrocity Centers
Concentration Camp near Hamburg, Hannover & Kiel
Sachsenhausen was one of the original 4 German Lagers, with Buchenwald, Dachau and Flossenburg.
Known for cruel medical experiments, the camp was located 45 minutes from Berlin with 44 subcamps. Established in the summer
of 1936 when Himmler took control, it changed from a regular detainment camp to a killing center. Built
as a prototype for other camps, it was designed on a paradigm of maximum SS control. As a training center for other
camps, it was a sought-after appointment for Nazi officers due to better living conditions for staff. From the years
1936 to 1945, over 200,000 persons were interred at Sachsenhausen. These included in 1938, the "November Jews" from Krystallnacht
and in 1939 former labor union leaders and political dissidents. A founder of the Confessing Church, Niemoller, spent time here
and at Dachau during his 8 year imprisonment.
While early prisoners were political, Soviet POWs & Jews, by 1944, all but 10% were foreign. Slave labor focused on brick making, canal work, and later: munitions and armaments production. Conditions were the same as for many camps: starvation and disease, barbaric medical experimentation, slave labor, hunger, and lack of hygenic conditions. Death came also by gassings which began in 1942, the same year most Jewish prisoners were deported to Auschwitz. The krema were established about this time, dedicated by 250 Jews slaughtered. The camp also tested 'gas-vans' which would later be used at Chelmno. Population in the camp rose from a few hundred in the beginning to 12,000 by the end of 1941 to 57,000 by the end of the war, of whom about 30% were women.
Shortly before liberation in 1945, there was an April death march; prisoners numbered as many as 40,000. Thousands died of exhaustion, starvation, & shootings. On the way to northwest Germany, a 'Forest camp' was established at Belower Forest, where a museum was raised in remembrance: 16,000 stayed there until 4-29-04. The 47th Soviet Army division liberated Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen, and soviet troops encountered death march victims en route. Jewish deaths are estimated at 105,000 total, a remarkable number comprising most of the Jews left in Germany. Six mass graves were found at the walls of the main camp.
1 "Sachsenhausen", SWC Learning Center/Archives. 2 "Sachsenhausen", Gedenkstaette-Sachsenhausen.de. 3 "Sachsenhausen", Jewish Gen: Forgotten Camps: Sachsenhausen 4 "Sachsenhausen", Holocaust Chronicles: Appendices