Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial
Quick Overview
Description
Time
Choose your start time.
Duration
5 or 6 hours
Meeting Point
The lobby of your hotel. Please note this tour is not recommended for individuals with limited mobility or walking impairments and not wheelchair accessible
Prices
5 hours
5 hour tour
€549
6 hours
6 hour tour
€589
Highlights
- Your very own expert, licensed guide for the day will come to your hotel to pick you up and get the tour underway, travelling with you via public transport to Oranienburg – location of the former Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, now a memorial centre and museum.
- Learn about the history of the camp, from its establishment by the Nazis, to its use by the Soviets post-WWII.
- See areas of the camp such as the camp kitchen, the execution trench and the crematoria.
- Look around the Jewish barracks and learn about everyday life and survival for prisoners under the brutal conditions enforced by the SS.
- See the infirmary, where prisoners were subjected to horrific medical experiments.
- Learn of the fate of various notable prisoners and hear stories of survival and valour amid the horror.
- Understand what became of the camp and its inmates as the Red Army advanced and how it came to be Special Camp No. 7/No. 1 after Soviet liberation.
- Travel back to Berlin in the company of your guide, who will drop you off at your hotel.
Your private guide will meet you at your accommodation before travelling with you to Oranienburg, just outside Berlin. As you walk through the town towards the memorial, you’ll gain insight into how the camp shaped daily life in the area, including stories of both collaboration and acts of resistance among the local population.
Upon arrival at the Sachsenhausen Memorial, your guide will provide an introduction to the camp’s history and its evolution over time. Originally built to hold political prisoners, Sachsenhausen later became a key site within the Nazi system of persecution, imprisoning more than 200,000 people, tens of thousands of whom perished.
As you explore the site, your guide will sensitively explain the realities of life inside the camp—from forced labour, roll calls, and starvation to the brutal systems of punishment and control. You will visit important locations including the guard towers, barracks, punishment cells, infirmary, Jewish barracks, execution facilities, and crematoria, gaining a deeper understanding of the daily suffering endured by prisoners.
The tour also examines the camp’s later use as a Soviet Special Camp between 1945 and 1950, and explores how Sachsenhausen has been remembered and memorialised from the Cold War period through to modern-day Germany.
On the return journey to Berlin, your guide will be happy to answer any further questions and offer recommendations to help you make the most of the rest of your stay.
Example Itinerary
The following list of sites is intended to give you an idea of what you can expect to see on this tour. Please note that our exact route through the camp may vary on the day depending on circumstances and your hotel pick-up point.
- Oranienburg – learn how the town’s inhabitants collaborated with, profited from or opposed the camp.
- The Concentration Camp Inspectorate – the administrative authority for the entire concentration camp system of the Third Reich
- Communications bunker
- SS training facility and guards’ quarters
- Former SS villas – built by concentration camp inmates and inhabited by high-ranking Nazi officials
- Former Commandant’s House – now an exhibition space
- Tower A – machine gun nest located at the entrance gate
- Electric fence
- The old Jewish barracks
- The prison cells – where camp inmates faced punishment and special prisoners of the Gestapo were incarcerated
- The gallows – located on the roll call square
- The East German memorial of 1961
- The execution trench
- Station Z – mass murder, execution trench, “neck shot facility”
- Special Camp No. 7/No. 1 – how the camp continued to be used under the Soviets
- The pathology centre – where SS doctors performed so-called autopsies
- The infirmary
- The Death March memorial
Insider Reviews
Gallery
