Berlin Day 4- Sachsenhausen

On the train to Sachsenhausen

Sachsenhausen

For those of you who don't know, Sachsenhausen is one of the smaller concentration camps used during WWII mainly to house political prisoners. Despite not being built specifically for the extermination of Jews, Sachsenhausen eventually built their own gas chamber and crematorium to accompany their execution trench and keep up with the overflowing demand to kill. Some 30, 000 people died at Sachsenhausen. Many of these deaths were due to widespread infection, malnutrition, pneumonia and exhaustion, but thousands were also the result of random shootings, planned executions and gas chamber extermination. About a third of those killed were Red Cross prisoners of war, who were shot while being measured for their uniforms shortly after arriving at the camp. After being liberated, hundreds more from the camp died during the death march and while waiting to be transported home. 

The visit to Sachsenhausen had a massive impact on me (Caitlyn). I still feel rattled and shaken and just... really emotional, I suppose. The entire camp has a weird, eerie vibe to it, and I constantly felt as though I was brushing against people, although there was nobody there. The terror that occurred at Sachsenhausen is still incomprehensible, even though we saw the skeletons of the building that ended the lives of thousands. But how can one ever comprehend that they are walking across the mass grave of ~30,000 people? It's just impossible.

When we came to this door, I hovered at the entrance and felt a very strange energy coming from within. What laid inside, although not visible from the doorway, was shocking and horrible and depressing. I found myself not being able to move forward at certain times, or not being able to breathe, and my heart was pounding furiously, or seemingly not at all. It was the most intense place I have ever set foot inside. 

This place is the medical building. To make the slaughter of thousands seem more 'legal', the SS dissected 'every' body for 'medical purposes'. Having said so, they just made the incisions on most bodies and sewed them back up without performing an autopsy, as the amount of bodies flowing in every day was impossible to keep up with. And then they stored the bodies downstairs until they could cremate or bury them in mass graves. 

This is where they stored the dead. Piled high on top of one another. 

Blood-stained floor. 

I took this photo of the staircase and freaked out when I looked at the display of my camera and saw this. I took the next photo literally twenty seconds later and it turned out fine...

Remains of the crematorium. 

Remains of the gas chambers.

Execution trench

Prisoners were forced to stand in front of the wooden logs and shot, so the bullets didn't fly astray and hit SS staff. 

And onto some less haunting images, dinner time! We had Italian again... of course. Last night we got Italian too, because I was craving pasta, but the menu was in Italian and Deutsche only so I had to get pizza because  'margarita' was the only thing I could understand. 

BEST PASTA I HAVE EVER EATEN IN MY WHOLE LIFE.

And Evan said his spaghetti was pretty amazing, too. 

Oh, and before I forget... LOOK at how cheap Jager is over here!!!