Berlin Part II: Sachsenhausen

(Left: Crematorium ruins, Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp)

On my last day in Berlin and Europe, I took the S-Bahn (subway) to Oranienburg to see Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Sachsenhausen was at its core like any other concentration camp: it was the site of premeditated torture and murder on a mass scale.

I wandered the grounds for several hours by myself, and am grateful to have had the opportunity to see and reflect on the place on my own. There are times when it is good to have friends, be they close compatriots or new acquaintances, while you travel. Other times, it's best to be just be alone in your own thoughts. For me, Sachsenhausen was one of those times.

Sachsenhausen, though it was similarly the scene of unimaginable cruelty and misery, differed from most of the camps Americans are familiar with in several extremely important ways. It was located not on Germany's fringes but right in Berlin's suburbs; like myself and most current-day visitors, the earliest prisoners at Sachsenhausen walked there from the S-Bahn/railroad station in the middle of town. The Nazis made the marches into public spectacles, and the obliging local population was encouraged to line the streets and hurl insults, fruit, and stones as the prisoners walked past. Although the marches were eventually discontinued for logistical reasons, the site of ashes falling in Oranienburg was not unfamiliar in the war's later years. Many historical revisionists claim that the Germans had no idea what the S.S. was carrying out in the East. They may not have known the full extent of the horrors there, but Sachsenhausen, just 23 miles from Brandenburg Gate, strikes me as definitive proof that they had at least an idea.

It also was not part of the Final Solution, the seminal point of Nazi madness that was the orderly genocide of millions of Jews, Gypsies and Slavs, although many of those people did pass through on their way to their deaths (and many thousands of Russian POW's were executed there). Rather, Sachsenhausen was primarily a "work" camp for political prisoners and P.O.W.'s; if you lived in Berlin during the Third Reich and actively opposed or resisted the Nazi regime, there's a decent chance you would have ended up there. Most (not all, but most) of the people who came through its infamous doors freely chose to resist Nazi crimes rather than collaborate or ignore them for their own behalf, either by resisting German aggression (P.O.W.'s), actively fighting back against Nazi rule, or simply by refusing to fight for a morally defunct nation. Many hundreds or thousands of those in the latter group who died could have received their release - right up to the moment of their deaths in the case of many Jehovah's Witnesses - simply by signing their conscription papers and joining the Wermacht (the German army), but only a handful did.

It is difficult for me to recount the tales I heard there; the pain the prisoners suffered is in many ways impossible to convey first-hand, let alone second-hand in my words instead of theirs. But I will say that I did not leave Sachsenhausen or Berlin emotionally troubled. Instead, I felt renewed confidence in humanity. There are bad people in this world, there are many more who do very bad things, and untold more who refuse to speak up. But at Sachsenhausen, a small detachment of brainwashed murderers stood guard over tens of thousands of people who did speak up or fight back, usually against near-impossible odds. Each of the 200,000 people who passed through the gates before their liberation in 1945 was likely just one of many in a circle of friends or family that refused to buy into Nazi madness. If that ratio doesn't bode well for humanity, I don't know what does.

Sachsenhausen to me is not merely a symbol of the horrible things we are capable of doing to each other. It is a symbol of the sacrifice we are capable of making for each other. It is not just a memorial to the murdered peoples of Europe; it is an everlasting memorial to the hundreds of thousands who endured unimaginable torture and death rather than take part in those crimes or sit silently by. Sachsenhausen is not just a monument to hate. It is a testament to hope.

Berlin, Part I

Since I've been back, a lot of people have asked me what my favorite place on the trip was, and I've never hesitated. The answer is Ios, which is literally the most beautiful and enjoyable place I've ever been. Since Ios is basically fake life, though - it's a tourist-driven town on a beautiful secluded island full of 20-something English-speakers, and is apparently pretty miserable in the winter - I usually follow up that answer by saying Berlin was my favorite normal place.

Most people are somewhat taken aback by this. I'm half-Jewish and full American, and I picked a German city as the best I've seen in Europe?

Thing is, I'm also a nerd when it comes to history, and to know the story of 20th century Berlin is to understand the entire Western world during that time. The juxtaposition of different eras is everywhere in this city. On the way back to my hostel on my last day in Europe, on a subway line that runs from Oranienburg (site of Sachsenhausen concentration camp) to Wannsee (site of the Wannsee Conference, where the Final Solution was planned) and twice underneath where the Berlin Wall used to be, I sat across an elderly woman who I deemed to be in her mid to late 80's.

I remember sitting there marveling over all the different traumatic events that might have happened to her in her lifetime. Maybe she was a Nazi, or maybe she came from a family of resisters. Maybe her husband, father, or brother died fighting in World War II, or maybe in a concentration camp. Was she stuck in the city for the terrifying Allied air raids, or even worse during the Soviet invasion (in which untold thousands of German women were raped by vengeful Red Army soldiers)? Did she spend the Cold War in the West or the East? Did she know someone (perhaps her or her own children) who fled for freedom, or was she an informant for the Stasi? How did she celebrate the fall of the Wall (or did she mourn it)?

It's obviously impossible to know the answers to these questions. It's possible that all of the answers are yes, and it's just as possible that she immigrated from somewhere else along the way. But for someone like me, who has spent so many hours reading about these horrific events, being in the locale where they took place was remarkable.

Of course, simply being the site of some of humanity's worst atrocities would not make Berlin an amazing place. But I don't want all my posts to be novel-length, so I'm breaking this one up for all of our convenience. Especially mine.