CCSachsenhausen.page

Sachsenhausen

Established: September 23, 1936
Liberated: April 27, 1945 by Soviets
Survivors: 3,000 at liberation
Total Inmates: 135,000 - 200,000
Inmates at one time: 10,000 - 35,000
Total Deaths: 100,000
Subcamps: 61

Source: Edelheit, Marcuse, Feig

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Inmates of Sachsenhausen included: Communists, Socialists, Centrists, criminals, asocials, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Czechs, Dutch, French, Italians, Belgians, Norwegians, Polish and Soviet POWs, Gypsies, Jews and AWOL members of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS.

11,000 Soviet POWs alone were shot and killed in the camp, while thousands more were gassed. An estimated 17,000 Soviet POWs died in the camp.

Until at least 1940, Sachsenhausen had no cremetorium - A large city cremation company was hired to send garbage trucks to the camp to collect bodies on a daily basis.

Sachsenhausen camp included 86 barracks, with up to 500 people in a single barrack; a garden with hothouses, flowers, and vegetables; and a hog-breeding farm.

Sachsenhausen was an urban camp - prisoners disembarked at the central railroad station and marched 3km to the camp through residential, business and factory districts.

Although the camp was built for 10,000 inmates, by the wars end up to 60,000 were imprisoned in the camp.

Sachsenhausen became a school of the concentration camp system. The SS trained many leaders and junior officers who were later appointed as commandants, camp leaders, and block leaders of the other 2,000 concentration camps in the system.

Jewish prisoners were housed seperately from Polish prisoners.

Prisoners were used for forced-labor in armament industries, including the Klinker Works.

140 Jewish prisoners were also employed in forging British currency, which was used to pay foreign spies. By the end of 1943, over half a billion dollars worth of British money was produced.

Sachsenhausen held a large number of homosexuals. (See FAQ)

Medical experiments were performed on Sachsenhausen prisoners. (See Medical Experiments)

Upon evacuation, 40,000 of 45,000 prisoners were forced to march out of the camp. A few days later, at liberation, only 3,000 sick prisoners remained alive in the camp.