Berlin - Sachsenhausen

Instead of spending my last day in Berlin, I went on a day tour of Sachsenhausen, a concentration camp near Berlin.

On the entrance gate, and at many other concentration camps, are the words "Arbeit macht frei" which roughly translates to "Work makes you free".

Sachsenhausen was built in a triangle so that the one guard tower could see every part of the camp. It was also supposed to be a model for all future concentration camps. However, the design was not used because it did not allow for easy expansion.

After the camp was finally closed (it was used for a time by the Soviets), most of the buildings were torn down because it was believed that no one would be interested in visiting the camp as a museum. This was not the case and so the building locations have been marked out and several of the buildings have been rebuilt using original material.

Inside the rebuilt buildings, there is a museum with pictures, documents, and artifacts from the camp. These buildings are in the section the camp which was added on, partway through World War II.

The camp was primarily used as a place to hold prisoners who were then put to work. Outside the triangle there is an execution trench and a mostly destroyed gas chamber and medical room.

These buildings were mostly destroyed and uncovered later when the museum was being built. The museum is very new and so they are constantly uncovering more parts of the camp and adding to the museum.

After arriving back in Berlin, I went to Holocaust Museum and Memorial (technically called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.) The Memorial is made of 2711 concrete stelae in a grid. The architect meant for the Memorial to be open to interpretation and so no explanation for the memorial is given.

The museum is very well designed and looks at the stories of specific families. It sits under the memorial and so the roof of the museum mirrors the stelae above.

After Berlin, I spent one night in Frankfurt before flying home.

I had a fantastic time travelling Europe and would definitely do it again. If you ever have the chance to go to Europe, I recommend all of the cities that I visited. Some of them I could have spend less time in and others I wish I had stayed longer. My favourites places were Venice and Füssen.

I have a couple more posts that I want to write about Sweden and Norway. I also went to Japan for a couple of weeks so I'll blog about that as well. I have a busy semester ahead so I'd be surprised if you see them before Christmas break. Feel free to email me to remind me in a couple of months as I may forget.