Sachsenhausen

   The concentration camp located near Berlin on the outskirts of Oranienburg was built in 1936. In November 1938, following Kristallnacht, 1,800 Jews were sent to the camp, where some 450 Jews were murdered after their arrival. During its early history, the executions at Sachsenhausen were done in a trench, either by shooting or by hanging the victims. By 1941, the Schutzstaffel (SS) set up installations for mass executions by shooting and the primary victims were Soviet prisoners of war. By the fall of 1941, 13,000–18,000 Soviet prisoners had been murdered. In 1942, large numbers of Jewish inmates were relocated to Auschwitz. In 1943, the construction of a gas chamber and crematoria provided for large numbers of prisoners to be killed. The gas chamber murdered prisoners with liquid Zyklon B, which was placed in small glass bottles into the ventilation system next to the door. The bottle was broken with a spike and the gas mixed with the air and was forced into the chamber.

   On the front entrance gates to Sachsenhausen was the infamous slogan Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Liberates). About 200,000 people passed through Sachsenhausen between 1936 and 1945. Some 30,000 inmates died there from exhaustion, disease, malnutrition, or pneumonia from the freezing winter cold. Many were executed or died as the result of brutal medical experimentation. Sachsenhausen was also the site of Operation Bernhard, the largest counterfeiting operation ever. The Nazis forced prisoners, mostly Jewish artisans, to produce forged British and U.S. currency as part of a plan to undermine the British and United States’ economies. Over P1 billion in counterfeited banknotes were recovered. With the advance of the Red Army in the spring of 1945, Sachsenhausen was prepared for evacuation. On 20–21 April, the camp’s SS staff ordered 33,000 inmates on a forced march northeast. Most of the prisoners were physically exhausted and thousands did not survive this death march; those who collapsed en route were shot by the SS. On 22 April 1945, the camp’s remaining 3,000 inmates, including 1,400 women were liberated by the Red Army and the Polish 2nd Infantry Division .

   See also Neuengamme.