Sachsenhausen.

It was designed; it was created.

The name itself doesn't translate to anything more than, "The house of Saxony"
But the history cuts deep.

We took a class field trip, and I personally couldn't bring myself to taking any pictures. There are some experiences, that are better as memories. But, to make some of my reflections more visual - I did some google searching, so none of the following pictures come from me or the day I visited.

The front gates of every concentration camp operated under the NSDAP were standardized to look as shown below:

The entrance to the concentration camp is powerful, it's not an ordinary gate. You know what's almost creepy is how it could be mistaken for a schoolhouse. It has the basic architecture, with a clock tower on top. I mean, I definitely wouldn't guess "entrance to a concentration camp" by seeing this picture. The translation of "Arbeit macht frei" is roughly, work makes you free.

...work makes you free...

Although the scale of horror that took place at Sachsenhausen may be less than that of Auschwitz, there is nothing pretty about this place. Although basically all of the barracks where prisoners were lived ended up being burned down by the Nazis, but certain areas still stand. The first building I entered had renovated the first floor to an information site, but the basement cellar was kept the same. Here there was the kitchens and leftover bits of the famous ovens and gas chambers.  The smell of must entered through my nasal tracts as I began to let my mind wander and recreate this space as it was in 1938-45. Of course, there is no way I can begin to fully comprehend the Holocaust - but being so near to actual artificats that were part of the murders of tens of thousands of people definitely brings you closer.

It's amazing how much time you can spend just in the yard looking around at essentially grass and abandoned buildings. The irony was that it happened to be an absolutely gorgeous day. However, my working memory of the holocaust up to this point is mostly in cinematic productions that generally take place in winter or gray-skied times. But, these people were also imprisoned during summer when the sky is blue as a dream and the grass is as bright of a green as you could imagine. I wonder if colors looked the same in those times.

I kind of got lost in these thoughts, especially as we went to set down our flowers at the foot of the memorial statue within the concentration camp. 

My most vivid memory is of the last building I entered, which was even more of a museum on the top floor, filled with artifacts and a small theater that showed a 30 minute quick historical overview. It's hard to explain how much there was to read and look at.
In left side of the picture above, it is a real "sledge" which literally was used to carry bodies. This is not a replica, this is a left over artifact. In each of these cases are different things, clothes, letters, tools, everything you can imagine.  To be honest, I got a little bit choked up at a display case that had a little hand made chess set. Of course the pieces were scraps of trash taped together in order to be distinguishable, but it had the most personality of any chess set I'd seen ever. It is the one thing I regret not photographing. But, I know I'll never forget it.  Even in the worst of times people found ways to use what they've learned or been happy from in the past to make sense of the present. Maybe you could just call it a distraction, but I call it maintaining a certain standard of humanity.

I don't want to go on too long about this, because the Holocaust is so popularized in history books and the media, that it almost has numbed an entire population. I guess by being at an actual concentration camp I do begin to sympathize with authors like Adorno and Sontag and others who criticized the art productions of the Holocaust. I still think people need to be able to visualize it somehow, but we must not let ourselves be numb.


The whole experience was like walking through a park, but then realizing it's a cemetery...