Our visit to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was very interesting and eye-opening.
I have read in books and learned in classes about the terrors of the camps, but seeing it in person was a whole different experience. We were able to see the barracks where the prisoners stayed, the morgue, the guard towers, a gas chamber and much more. We read stories about prisoners who survived the camp, and some who did not. Hearing these stories, and walking on the same paths that the prisoners walked on not so long ago was a sobering experience.
The memorials there show that Germany acknowledges the horrible mistakes it’s country made during the war. On one of the memorials was an interesting quote from Andrzej Szczypiorski, a former prisoner of the camp. He stated, “And I know one thing more – that the Europe of the future can not exist without commemorating all those, regardless of their nationality, who were killed at that time, with complete contempt and hate, who were tortured to death, starved, gassed, incinerated and hanged…”