Berlin Day 15

Well, today I went to Saschenhausen Concentration Camp in Oranienberg, about a 40 minute train ride due north from Berlin. I have been dreading this day for many obvious reasons, but in the end decided to go for the other many obvious reasons. 

I will say that the experience would have been remarkably more awful had I not been there with my friend Will the Aussie....and what's more...on the train there a pretty girl from our group sat down next to me and took out from her bookbag, "A Song of Fire and Ice," otherwise known as Game of Thrones. Her name is Yael, she is from Israel, and she has come to Berlin to study after having finished her army service. Needless to say we all hit it off and toured the camp together - me, Will, and Yael. Again, having these two alongside made the experience a lot easier than it would have otherwise been. 

We left the Oranienburg Rail Station and boarded a bus to the camp. When he got there, the bus driver yelled out ,"NEXT STOP, Saschenhausen!!!!,  NEXT STOP, Saschenhausen!!!!" Dark humor. 

We made our way into the camp grounds, got the audiotour, passed by the SS barracks outside the wall of the main camp, and then I found myself at the main gate, where the Arbeicht Macht Frei sign stared me right in the face. At this point I almost lost it completely, until two teenage girls began taking pictures of themselves in front of the sign. Yael said something sarcastic like, "Best Facebook Post Ever!" and we all cracked up. 

A note about Saschenhausen. This is much smaller than Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, etc...A microcosm of those camps. 30,000 died here. 200,000 passed through in total. There are no mountains of shoes. There are only 4 barracks left standing, along with the foundations of a crematoria and gas chamber, and the "Execution Pit," which is a dug out ravine with wood supports. All in all I would guess the place seemed the size of a very large baseball field - think 2 baseball fields) with a 12-foot wall surrounding it, Guard Towers along the wall everywhere, with electric wiring. In short, it was probably a more mentally...manageable experience than going to Auschwitz, but anyway. 

Our first stop was to the Camp Infirmary Barracks, where the Nazis carried out medical experiments and healed no one. I stood in was once was an operating room for approximately 9 seconds and left to get air. Yael and Will lasted 20 seconds. The next stop was the Morgue/Pathology Building, where they did autopsies (feel free to skip ahead if this is too much). I lasted about 6 seconds in the building. Yael and Will lasted probably 11 seconds. 

We next proceeded to the crematorium and Execution Pit - housed in what is referred to as the Machine Yard. The yard is outside the main wall - an annex - out of sight. They would play loud music here when killing people to drown out the noise. There are mass graves which surround the yard and Ravine. Just patches of grass to the naked eye. It all seemed very...factory-like, industrial, cold. 

A note here about the Weather. It was grey, freezing, and windy. And why wouldn't it be?

Another note. On the northern end of the Camp, where "The Machine Yard" is, there is an outer fence. Beyond the fence is the town of Oranienburg. There are houses 200 yards from the fence. During the war, the Nazis would send camp prisoners into town to do construction work - for example, they marched prisoners into two to build a movie theater. While this was considered "good work" for prisoners to have....well, "Are you f'ing kidding me?" comes to mind. The audiotour also contained a story where a German child who lived in the city asked an SS Guard when they were going to burn Russians again...."

Past the Yard is the Special Soviet Camp. The largest execution here involved the murder of 10,000 Soviet troops over the course of a few days. After the war, the NKVD (Russian Gestapo) took over the camp and built a sub-camp for Nazis they took prisoner - the Russians of course repaid the favor. There is another mass grave site in the Special Camp for executed Germans. 

We made our way from the Yard/Special Camp area to the barracks area where they put the Jews, which occurred before the War started (1938 - Kristallnacht), and in the latter stages of the War (1945). 

There was also a Special Prison here (a Prison within a Prison) where they kept VIP prisoners, and rebellious prisoners. An awful sight.

Among the more famous prisoners who were put here as Martin Niemoller, a member of the Confessing Church (Bonhoeffer's Church). You will know Martin Niemoller for his quote:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Anyway, they have his cell marked. There is a photo of him in it. The audio tour had a quote from him about the experience, "However bad you think it was, it was 1,000 times worse than that....."

The next stop was the Jewish Barracks. I walked in and immediately saw the bathroom area and the cramped wooden bunks in the adjoining room. My breath was stolen from me right then and there. Left. Came back inside for 45 seconds and walked the building with Yael, which helped...we were having the same emotions throughout - a blend of humor and horror. 

That was it. We walked back under the Arbeit Macht Frei sign and took the bus back through the residential streets that line the camp boundary, through Oranienburg and onward to Berlin. 

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I think we have all thought about what it would be like to go to a camp. I know some on this list have been....

I would say that Saschenhausen was not of this world....it was a cold, colorless, killing field. The execution pit, the mass graves, the fences...signs of death....I was almost numb seeing it. It was only when I saw those bunks and that bathroom and those operating tables...signs of life....did the place become real and horrible. 

You have to wonder how the Nazis who ran the place (and the Germans who lived just over the wall) could have been so desensitized to it all....to me, this may be the penultimate crime of the Holocaust. That a man turned other men and women into cold, robotic killers. Did the Holocaust expose a weakness in the human condition? Are we all capable of being turned into killers? Have you ever wondered that? You say no, but here and at Auschwitz and in Rwanda and with ISIS today...it is happened and is happening. 

What is it that turns someone into an SS Officer and makes the crimes at Saschenhausen possible? 

I will never know the answer to this Question.   

I need a drink.

Dan

p.s. I get it if this e-mail was blah - but really, is there anything harder to write about?