Memorial center and museum Sachsenhausen, Oranienburg,Berlin|Gedenkstätte und museum Sachsenhausen|

On 21 March 1933, right in the centre of the town of Oranienburg near Berlin, an empty factory building became the first concentration camp in Prussia. Today, the memorial centre at Sachsenhausen tells the story of the concentration camp at the sites where it took place.

The concentration camp

The site of what is now the Sachsenhausen memorial centre was one of the biggest concentration camps on German territory from 1936 to 1945. The T Building housed the central administration office for all the concentration camps. The part of the camp known as the “Zone of Interest”, along with many auxiliary camps, housed around 200,000 inmates who were enslaved and exploited as forced labour by local industry. Several tens of thousands of prisoners died as a result the inhumane working and living conditions and the brutal treatment, or were gassed, shot or subjected to medical experiments.

In April 1945, with the Red Army already approaching, the SS began evacuating the camp and sent the inmates on “death marches”, in which thousands were shot or died of exhaustion. Today, a branch of the memorial centre commemorates the death march with an exhibition in Belower Wald.

On 22 and 23 April 1945, Soviet and Polish troops reached the camp, where even after liberation, hundreds died as a result of their imprisonment.