Here's our tour group walking through the gates. This camp was about 35 miles from Berlin.
Administration building is in the background.
Here's a map of the camp area circa 1940.
Note the camp is on the left, the Heinkel Aircraft factory in the center and the brickyard on the right. Prisoners were employed as slave labor in the factory and the brickyard.
Here's our tour guide Victor explaining the layout of the camp. It was made in the form of a large triangle
Every camp evidently had these words on the gate:
Work Sets You Free
We learned the reason that the camp was made in the form of a triangle. A machine gunner on the second floor of this admin building could 'see' down each row of barracks houses and be able to shoot anyone. It saved on guard personnel.
Sachsenhausen was built in 1936 and liberated in 1945 by the Soviets.
It is estimated that 200,000 people passed through these gates.
Sachsenhausen was in the Soviet sector when the war ended and they used the camp as a prison. All of the barracks were torn down except for the two which we toured. Note the gravel squares which showed where each of the barracks buildings had been.
The buildings consisted of one common room with bunk areas on each end
Three tier bunks
Here's the camp prison
There were memorials in each cell to famous prisoners held here. These were mainly political prisoners and resistance leaders.
These posts were used to hang people by their bound arms. Note the foundations of additional cells in the foreground.
Guard tower with searchlight
Wall with electrified fence. Neutral Zone warned people that to go on the gravel meant you would be immediately shot without warning.
Obelisk erected by the soviets when they closed the camp.
A statue at the base of the obelisk shows a Soviet soldier rescuing two prisoners. It was pointed out that they look a lot healthier than any of the prisoners of the day.
The crematorium foundations and memorial.
The buildings had been blown up by the Soviets and later were turned into a memorial.
...More
A memorial to those who died there.
We quit taking pictures at this point. The tour moved on to an area where mass shootings took place. We all took a moment of silence where a mass grave had been discovered in the 1990s. We then toured the infirmary and morgue.
