Day 5: Sachsenhausen Detention Camp
Since childhood I’ve heard stories about
the Nazi Party and their torturous era. I’ve always wanted to visit a
concentration camp to educate myself about this topic and also to understand
more closely about the torments of those people who were in there. On the fifth
day I got a chance to go there with the group. It took us an hour through train
to reach Sachsenhausen Detention Camp. There we met our guide Chris, who was
very resourceful and he took us everyplace one by one explaining about the
camp.
While entering Chris told us that from
this very camp no one ever could escape. Then pointed at distant corners where
tall two storied towers were made for Nazi soldiers so that they can keep eye
over the place from the top. This was not the only reason, starvation and
tremendously heavy loaded works made the prisoners so weak that even if they
escape some part of the camp they would not be able to make it to the end
alive.
Before entering the camp, Chris showed
us the kitchen where the foods were being prepared. Food was prepared for the
soldiers by Jehovah’s Witnesses prisoners. These people were so strong in their
faith that Nazi armies knew that they would never poison or harm them. So at
one point the Nazi armies even offered them a way to become free and help them
the way they are leading. But none of the Jehovah’s Witnesses prisoners
accepted their offer.
While entering the main door of the
Sachsenhausen Detention Camp we witnessed the main tower at the top of it,
where all the roll calls have been taken of the prisoners. These roll calls
sometimes were eight or nine hours long. And if somebody fainted during the
roll call Nazis would shot them right there. There were tall walls with barbed
wire all around covering the camp.
We saw some rooms as we went to the left
side. We went in there and witnessed how little the bunk beds, the toilets, the
benches and other furniture were for the prisoners. After passing that room
there we a little museum where posters where hanging on the wall of that time
and also what the prisoners used to wear and armies as well. We saw the whole
camp’s map how it was made in order to watch all the prisoners very
efficiently.
After leaving that place we saw a huge
3D triangle shaped tower. This tower was taller than any other tower at the
camp. Then Chris explained us it was made to show honor to the people who were
in the camp. At the last we came to tower Z where we saw the map of execution,
how the Nazis brutally planned to execute some without giving them a hint.
Chris explained how the map worked and the process of they how they kill the
people. I was shocked the whole time but it was so unbearable when I heard
about the loud music part. Soldiers used to take prisoners in a manner that the
prisoners would think they would get reward for something, and then they would
take them one by one in the music room separately. From the other rooms no one
could ever guess what would be happening. Also the loud music was only there so
that it could swallow the noise of the shooting taking place in the other
shielded room; where the soldier would shoot the prisoner through a hole
directly into the head from another side room without even seeing whom he was
shooting. After tower z our tour ended and while coming back for the last time
I took a glance at the whole place. Just took a deep breath and thought how
inhuman a sick powerful maniac like Hitler could be. The Nazis brutality is an
example of how racially profiling people ruined so many innocent lives. And at
the end the Nazis couldn’t survive as well. That is why there is a saying;
justice will be served to all as the time goes by.
