This past weekend our group visited both the concentration camp Sachsenhausen and the memorial/museum for the murdered Jews.
The concentration camp Sachsenhausen was a very somber experience, and it even rained while we were there which really set the mood for the visit. We listened to an audio guide which explained many interesting facets of how the camp was run. The whole camp was designed in a utilitarian way to instill terror in inmates, and also allowed for machine guns to have vision of nearly every open area. One thing I didn’t understand was why they had an infirmary in a death camp, but then I learned that the doctors didn’t try to save Jewish patients they just needed a clean place to administer untested drugs and medicines to Jewish test subjects.
The biggest thing that struck me at the Memorial to the murdered Jews was just how many people were murdered. 6 Million sounds like a lot, but I didn’t really grasp just how many it was until I saw the listing of just how many people were murdered at each of the major camps. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Jews, disabled, gypsies, and other people the Nazi party hated were killed at each camp. Each one of them with a family, and a life they deserved to keep