Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Tuesday 15th April

We woke to blue skies and my weather said 10 degrees.  I decided that would mean it would be warmer than yesterday.   How wrong that turned out to be.

Next we set out and serious discovery number 2 of the day. Nowhere in the GPS could the place be found.  Not as a place of interest, not as a museum and my navigating skills to take us back to the road we came from Tegal on Saturday, (where I saw the place), didn't suit the driver, who maintained the GPS and I were wrong.

We were supposed to meet a guide at 10, that didn't happen and after being lost, we found a sign, but it indicated another name.  On my suggestion we stopped at McDonald's so I could use WIFI.

Discovery number 3, all WIFI here requires a code which is texted to your phone.  Still waiting for that text,  but the manager pointed us in the right direction, so after a great latte, we realised we were close.  Over the railway tracks and into the site.

We ended up taking a different tour, and the wind was starting to blow strongly.  Our tour guide was a German girl, and totally in English.

The pour souls who were imprisoned there after it was built in 1933 would be lucky to survive.  It is about 400 hectares, and was built in two stages, before being liberated in April 1945.  Later the residents took all the building materials for their own use, to repair their own damaged homes.  There remained only a couple of the prisoner's barracks,  and then the place was burnt down by radicals in the 1960.  Remember also this is Eastern Germany and the Wall separated the east and west.

The day got colder the wind stronger, and I was shivering in my boots, how did they cope?  A thin cotton garment, wooden clogs and a rough blanket at night.  Often they had to stand for hours in the freezing conditions for roll calls etc, and the hope was that the conditions would kill them, and they did.

Interestingly two only escapes.  

Layout the triangle shape first stage

The prisoners arrived by train and were walked through the town to the main gate

There was a machine gun on the top of the guard house 

Up to 400 prisoners washed here inside the barracks, the signs tell the story

So if you are thing of visiting Sachsenhausen camp, and you have an electronic Golf (or any other vehicle) with it's own GPS, this is what you need to search in order to find the place.

If the weather looks nice, don't be fooled,  I was so cold I gave up towards the end and tried to get warm in an exhibition area.  The tour takes a long time, it also rained!  Coming home the temperature showed 10 then as soon as it rained it was back to 6.5.

Oh, lesson three for today, make sure you have a German road map with you.