Will be traveling to Berlin and Munich on next trip to Germany. Would like to visit a concentration camp. Can anyone that is familiar with both Sachsenhausen and Dachau respond with their preference. It is awkward to ask which is best but I hope someone will respond with their preference. Thanks!

This question came up a while back with some discussion. I have been to Sachsenhausen, so I just went to the Dachau website to see what it looked like, read about it, etc. They do look fairly similar to each other. Then last week, I met someone who had gone to both camps and he said that yes, they were pretty much alike.

The one thing about going to Sachsenhausen, is that Ravensbruck - the womens camp, is right down the road. Hardly anyone talks about going there and that is a shame. I think they probably have some good exhibits about what it was like to be a woman in these camps. So, perhaps you can go to both of these.

I've been to both and they are very similar. We took a tour of Sachsenhausen using Berlin Walks http://www.berlinwalks.com/tours_sachsenhausen.html and it was excellent. It is a whole day. I got much more out of it than the self-tour of Dachau.

Dachau:

you are in a room
there are BIG photographs of some of the atrocities which went on when the place was in operation
you suddenly realize you are IN the very room where those events took place....

We recently went to Bergen-Belsen, near Celle south of Hamburg. Open fields in a thick forest. Mounds of earth containing the unidentified remains of thousands and thousands of unidentified bodies. A central monument with inscriptions in a dozen or more languages. A few individual monuments, but the exact whereabouts of specific remains are unknown -- including those of Ann Frank and her sister Margot.

A grim and spare entrance building constructed of unadorned concrete. None of the original structures remain -- they were burned to the ground when the camp was liberated in April 1945 -- typhus was rampant and so the buildings were destroyed by fire for santitary reasons. Heaps of corpses were buried with bulldozers, shoving them into pits in the sandy soil.

Very few signs directing us to the camp. A few families and individuals wandering about. Otherwise, a huge deserted tract of meadowland among the moors and the trees.

Located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory,Dachau has historical significance in that it was the first Nazi concentration camp. Heinrich Himmler described it officially as “the first concentration camp for political prisoners.” As with other camps, most buildings are reproductions since the disease infested originals had to be destroyed.

What impressed me about Dachau is how near it is to civilization – some 10 miles from Munich. So who knew what when?

<What impressed me about Dachau is how near it is to civilization – some 10 miles from Munich. So who knew what when?>

And, how close the camp is to the town. Same thoughts.

Sachsenhausen is right outside Orianienberg (sp?)

Apparently the people of the town knew what was going on...well maybe not all the horrible detais, but some...

Hello Linda

I've been a few times to Sachsenhausen but not Dachau.

There were two camps in Oranienburg. The first was in the town itself and closed in 1934. Sachsenhausen was the second camp to be built in Germany (in 1936) but this time on the outskirts of the town. It became the model camp for all others including Dachau and was used initially for political opponents to the regime.

My first visit was for personal reasons and was in mid-winter. Other visits have been July and September. I'm afraid, for me, the chill of that winter day returned each time I visited in summer.

There is an often-quoted poem by Martin Niemoller an inmate of Sachsenhausen that adds much to what it must have been like to be taken prisoner and held at the camp:

First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Unfortunately, I cannot decide for you. But, whatever choice you make, it will be the right one.

Bill

Linda, I have visited Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck, the women's camp mentioned up the thread. The Ravensbruck exhibits are sobering, but well done. (Fiorio LaGuardia's sister was imprisoned there.) I would recommend a visit there.