Sachsenhausen

There's a concentration camp, called Sachsenhausen, an hour or two's train ride from Berlin. It was a "forced labour" camp so the stories (and facilities) weren't as horrific those you'd expect from an "extermination" camp like Auschwitz. More inmates died from exhaustion and malnutrition than from systematic killing, but the kinds of abuse that went on are nothing short of evil.

We saw the yard where men were punished with a "pole hanging": hung from a pole by their wrists, so that they not only dislocated their shoulders but had to support their whole body's weight with only ligaments and sinew. This is the same courtyard in which prisoners were ordered to stand at attention for the entire day without pause, often in rain and freezing cold.

The medical unit was used for supremely unethical medical experiments and the pathology staff were only allowed to use one of seven "approved" causes of death for the medical records.

We saw the toilets that men were drowned in, and the unventilated storage room in which groups of men suffocated, but we also saw videos of how the SS (those who ran the camp, and also used it for training) presented themselves to the people in the local town. It seems that the townsfolk were quite happy to have the garrison there, and the SS seemed just like any other military unit; their football team played in the local leagues, their brass band played concerts in the town hall and they even held open days with balloons and sweets for the children.

My Italian friend asked me, as a New Zealand boy, what I learnt in school of WW2 and the Nazis. Despite several of my school friends' extensive knowledge on the topic, I came through with only a passing familiarity.

I'm slowly remedying that.