Sachsenhausen Gedenkstatte

Monday, we went to the Sachsenhausen Memorial.  Just north of Berlin, Sachsenhausen was one of   the most notorious death camps of the Nazi empire and was liberated by Allied troops in 1945.  The freedom was short-lived.  the soviet secret police turned it into a prison camp, and the misery and death continued for 5 more years. 

The largest prison camp in East Germany, Sachsenhausen was home to some 12,000 inmates from 1945-1950, when the prison was shut down.  Mass graves of former prisoners were discovered here in 1990.  During WWII, Sachsenhausen was the administrative headquarters for all the concentration camps.  The SS learned its methods of mass killing at this camp.  Most of the 30,000 victims of the Nazi regime were prisoners of war. 

As we walked around the camp looking at the rebuilt buildings, seeing the devices of torture, and killing alley, I just could not understand how one human being could treat another so inhumanly.  All I could think of was that Satan was having a good day here as he witnessed the human suffering and degradation.  

Many German people say that the German's did not know what was going on in the death camps.  I find that hard to believe.  The many camps are located in and about the city.  How could the people not know what was going on?  My thought on this is that they were so afraid that it could happen to them if they said anything, that they turned a "blind eye" to what was going on.