Separation, Persecution, Exploitation, Warehousing…

Today we traveled to the northern most point the Berlin rail pass would take us, Oranienburg. Here is where one of the first concentration camps created by the National Socialists was built and operated, Sachsenhausen. While the eyes of the world were focused on the 1936 Olympic games, taking place only a few miles to the south, the form and function of this massive instrument of horror was taking shape.

As we explored the various spaces and exhibits it contained, we learned how this modern tool of social control formed and adapted to the developing and changing needs of the burgeoning Nazi state. Our attention was drawn to the medical experiments that took place there, the high-profile political prisoners it repressed and sought to silence (e.g., Martin Niemöller), the Jewish citizens it expanded to absorb, and the swell of Russian POW’s that were so callously warehoused and then killed within its walls.

Upon reflection, the students shared several observations including: the loss of language to describe what had happened, the disbelief that an outside world could be unaware, the shock of its sheer size (noting also that there were 70 sub-camps that were associated with it), the ethics of the medical experimentation conducted (as well as the use of the insights it may have provided), the cruelty of torture so often experienced, and the psychological effects of the whimsical and sadistic nature of the guards. These students are curious yet unflinching; brave and yet modest and ruminative. I am thankful.

Tomorrow we will take a break and visit Lutherstadt in Wittenberg.