Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Sachsenhausen - darkometer rating : 9 - The site of a large Nazi-era concentration camp on the outskirts of Berlin , Germany . > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: This was one of the first large concentration camps the Nazi regime set up, in 1936, not that long after seizing power in 1933 (see also Dachau ). Thus its earliest inmates were political prisoners, communists and other opponents of the Nazis. But it wasn't before long that the whole host of other Nazi victim categories joined them, in particular homosexuals, Jehovah's witnesses, gypsies, and of course Jews, as well as POWs once World War II had started. Although this was mainly 'just' a real concentration camp and did not have the extra function of extermination camp (like Auschwitz or Majdanek ), it had all the vile hallmarks of Nazi brutality towards their victims. Of the total of 204,000 people sent here about half perished as a result of malnutrition, harsh living conditions, and brutal treatment and, not least, executions. Sachsenhausen is special amongst all the Nazi concentration camps in that it also was a Holocaust training site for camp staff as well as an experimental site. In addition to 'medical experiments', an experimental mass shooting installation was covertly tested here, early experiments with gassing were undertaken too (mostly on Soviet POWs at first), and there was also a gas chamber proper, but apparently this was only occasionally put to use. Sachsenhausen also remarkable for its post-war history: the Soviets , who liberated the camp just before the end of WWII in April 1945, continued using the camp for their own political prisoners until 1950 – and the death toll during that period was similarly horrific as it had been under the Nazis.