Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial by Bus
Quick Overview
Description
Time
10 am
Duration
4 hours
Meeting Point
Reichstagufer 17, 10117 Berlin
Prices
Adult
aged 18 and over
€59.90
Youth
aged 17 and under
€59.90
Required Transport Ticket
No public transport ticket required
Highlights
- Sit back and relax in our air-conditioned coach as your expert guide provides commentary en route to the site.
- Drive through the small town of Oranienburg, on the edge of which the former concentration camp is located, and see sites where inmates were forced to work.
- Our licensed guides expose the realities of life and death in the camp, where inmates fell victim to starvation, disease, forced labour and systematic extermination.
- Take in the roll call square, the punishment cell block, the execution grounds and the crematoria.
- Look around the Jewish barracks and learn about everyday life and survival under the brutal conditions imposed by the SS.
- See the infirmary, where prisoners were subjected to horrific medical experimentation.
- Learn of the fate of various notable prisoners and hear stories of humanity 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.
- Return to the coach to travel back to the centre of Berlin, accompanied by your guide.
Starting Point
Meet your guide on the square next to the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears), Reichstagufer 17, 10117 Berlin.
Description
Travelling to the site on our private air-conditioned bus provides an opportunity for your expert guide to deliver a commentary that will lend context and understanding to your tour of the memorial. You will be given essential background information about the Nazis’ rise to power and the purpose and conditions of the early concentration camp system in Germany.
Once at the memorial site, our licensed guide will give you a full and sensitive account of the horrors that occurred here. Over the nine years that the Nazis operated Sachsenhausen concentration camp, they incarcerated over 200,000 people. Some 45,000 of those interned here succumbed to exhaustion, undernourishment, disease, medical experimentation, and systematic extermination.
As you move around the memorial, you will see buildings such as the barracks, the infirmary, the pathology laboratory, the punishment cells and sites such as the execution grounds, the crematoria, and the gas chamber. As well as learning about the brutal day-to-day lives and deaths of the inmates, you will also hear individual stories of survival, dignity and solidarity among prisoners who were able to help one another endure the unendurable.
Your guide will explain how, as the war moved into its final phase, an unprecedented campaign of mass killings began, culminating in weakened survivors being forced into “death marches” away from the camp. After the liberation of Sachsenhausen in 1945, the camp was repurposed by the Soviets as a “Soviet Special Camp”, where enemies of the new Soviet state were incarcerated up until 1950.
As such, it was not until 1961 that the East German authorities established a memorial here. It is important to consider on the tour how Germany comes to terms with this dark chapter of its history through education of its citizens and memorialisation of the victims of the past.
At the conclusion of the tour you will return to the coach to be driven back to the centre of Berlin.
Finishing Point
The tour concludes at our centrally located meeting point near Friedrichstraße train station.
Insider Route
This itinerary is intended to give you a general idea of our route on this tour. You can expect to see and hear stories about all of these sites, as well as many more! Please be aware that the route is subject to change on any given day, should unforeseen circumstances arise.
- Meeting point – on the square next to the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears), Reichstagufer 17. On the bus ride you will be given the background information that will prepare you for your tour.
- Drive through the town of Oranienburg – see where slave labourers worked and learn about how locals collaborated with and opposed the Nazi regime.
- Former SS villas – built by concentration camp inmates and inhabited by high-ranking Nazi officials
- The Concentration Camp Inspectorate – the innocuous-looking building that was the central administrative authority for the entire concentration camp system of the Third Reich
- The former SS training grounds – today repurposed as a police training facility
- Appellplatz, where prisoners were forced to assemble for hours in all weather conditions
- The Jewish barracks
- Camp kitchen
- Boot testing track – slave labour in the form of testing army boots
- Gas chamber and crematoria – a terrible testament to the many lives lost
- The prison cells – where camp inmates faced punishment and special prisoners of the Gestapo were incarcerated
- Station Z – mass murder, execution trench, “neck shot facility”
- Infirmary – where brutal medical experiments were carried out on prisoners
- Pathology centre – where SS doctors performed so-called autopsies
- Camp brothel
Insider Reviews
Gallery
