Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp
Sited just outside Berlin in the small town of Oranienburg, Sachsenhausen is a key site for both of the periods of history covered in the InSite programme. It demonstrates clearly the layers that exist within many sites in Europe and the links between the legacy of the Second World War and events after 1945.
Sachsenhausen was one of the main Nazi internment camps, used as a prototype for others. It was not designed specifically for extermination but was used for these purposes at the end of the war when thousands of Soviet POWs and Jewish prisoners on death marches were killed there. After the war, the Soviets continued to use the infrastructure for similar purposes.