Private Tour - Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial
Just outside the city limits stands a reminder of the darkest days of Berlin’s history: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Built in 1936 by slave laborers, Sachsenhausen became the model that all other camps followed. It was a school of brutality, training guards for positions in other camps. By the end of WWII, over 50,000 people had died there.
Sachsenhausen’s tragic history continued from 1945 to 1950 when the new Communist occupiers secretly followed the Nazis' footsteps and used the camp to detain political enemies. Thousands more perished during this period.
Visiting the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Memorial is one of the most important things you can do on your visit to Berlin. During our six hour tour, we tell the story of Sachsenhausen’s infamous history with the sensitivity needed to examine how something as horrible as the Holocaust could have happened.
This tour will see:
The Memorial to the Death March - As the Russian forces approached from the East, the camp was evacuated in a desperate attempt to keep the prisoners from being liberated. The camp guards forced a brutal march towards the Baltic Sea to deliver what the Head of the SS (the group ultimately responsible for the management of the camp system), Heinrich Himmler, called 'the prize'. The goal was to load the prisoners onto barges and after heading off shore quickly eliminate the last of Sachsenhausen’s inmates.
Tower A - The main entry point into the inner camp, this guard tower stood as a symbol of the terror and control the guards held over their captives. The words 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI' (work makes you free) are cast into the metal of the tower gate.
The Appellplatz - On the roll call square, prisoners would be assembled, counted and assigned to their slave-labor duties.
The Standing Barracks - One of the cruel ways to torture the prisoners was to make them stand the entire day, and to horribly beat anyone found sitting or leaning against walls for support.
Barracks 38/39 - A good example of what life in the barracks would have been like, Barracks 38 was also the site of a neo-Nazi arson attack following former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's 1992 visit to the camp.
The 'T' Prison - Both a place to keep highly valuable prisoners out of the regular population, and a place to keep the regular prison population from seeing what was happening to those sent to solitary confinement, this prison within the prison of the camp was known for its brutality, tortures and murders.
Station 'Z' - Over 10,000 Russian soldiers were murdered here in blatant violation of the strict rules of the Geneva Convention. Through an elaborate scheme to execute the soldiers without them suspecting their imminence of their deaths, this was also the facility housing the cremation ovens and the one working gas chamber at the camp.
Infirmary Barracks – Shown to German and foreign journalists as an example of the health facilities at the camps, this showcase of patient care was secretly the home to inhuman medical experimentations.
The Pathology Department – The process of ascertaining a prisoner’s cause of death, creating a death certificate and finally sending the corpse to by incinerated started in this building with the prisoner’s autopsy.
This general overview outlines some of the highlights of this 6 hour tour of Berlin's Concentration Camp Memorial (this includes the approximate 2 hours required for transportation by train to and from the memorial.)
The Sachsenhausen Tour costs 14€ for adults, and 12€ for students. Public transport included - a savings of €5.20!
If you have further inquiries or wish to book this tour, please email us at with your requested tour date, time and number of tour participants and we will respond to your email with a price offer within 48 hours (most emails are answered within 2 hours during normal business hours), or alternatively call +49 (0)30 510 500 30 for immediate assistance.
