A Decentralizing Concept of the Museums
The redesign of Sachsenhausen Memorial encompasses an overall
decentralizing concept, giving visitors the opportunity to learn about the
history of the places within the authentic surroundings. The remnants of
buildings and other relics of the camp, will be put into the focus of the
presentation and combined with an explanatory historical documentation on
its history. Ten of the planned thirteen permanent exhibitions currently
on display show further unique aspects of the history of Sachsenhausen
that are directly connected to the places they are shown.
(The numbers are related to the map of the memorial site.)
7. Commandant's House
History of the SS Command Staff – 1936-1945
(in preparation)
8. New Museum
Oranienburg Concentration Camp – 1933-34
On 21st March 1933, local SA stormtroopers took over a disused brewery in middle of the town of Oranienburg and set up the first concentration camp in the state of Prussia. Over 3,000 prisoners, mostly political opponents of the National Socialists, were humiliated and maltreated there; some of them were even murdered. The exhibition uses artwork, artefacts, documents, films and audio clips to show how tactics of public intimidation rapidly developed into a state-organised concentration camp system.
8. New museum
From Memory to Monument – 1950-1990
Films, audio clips, artwork, plans and numerous artefacts illustrate the story of the memorial site, from the first acts of remembrance after 1945 to inauguration as one of the GDR's National Memorials in 1961, continuing up to German reunification in 1989. The exhibition examines the sweeping changes made to the historical substance by East German architects and planners, as well as key aspects of the political instrumentalisation of antifascism.
10. Entrance to the Prisoners’ Camp "Tower A"
Organisation of the Concentration Camp – 1936-1945
(in preparation)
15. Barrack 38
Jewish Prisoners in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp 1936-1945
Barracks 38 and 39 were part of the 'Small Camp'. It was there that the SS incarcerated Sachsenhausen’s Jewish prisoners from November 1938 to October 1942. An anti-Semitic firebomb attack in 1992 destroyed parts of both barracks. The new Museum Barrack 38 tells the story of Jewish prisoners in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, with the aid of prisoner's biographies.
16. Barrack 39
The 'Everyday Life' of Prisoners in Sachsenhausen 1936-1945
In Barrack 39, the 'everyday life' of prisoners in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp is presented thematically in a multi-media environment. Twenty different prisoners each relate their personal experiences under the headings: ‘Roads to Sachsenhausen’, ‘Prison Society’, ‘Work’, ‘Time and Space’, ‘Violence, Dying and Death’ and ‘Living with the Memory’.
17. Prison
The Prison within the Concentration Camp 1936-1945
Put up by inmates in 1936, this three-wing block of cells was used as a prison by the Gestapo and the camp authorities. It was a place veiled in secrecy, a place of torment and murder. It held those punished by the SS for infringements of camp discipline as well as prominent figures arrested by the Gestapo. The exhibition is housed in five original cells of the one remaining wing of the cell block.
22. Prisoners’ Kitchen
Exhibition of the "Sachsenhausen National Memorial" (1961)
(new exhibition in preparation)
In 1961, the East German government commissioned the planners of the National Memorial of Sachsenhausen, the Ministry of Culture and the ‘Committee of Anti-Fascist Resistance Fighters’ to establish the then ‘camp museum’ in the former prisoners’ kitchen. It has scarcely been altered since then. After 2007, there will be a completely new exhibition, as part of the renovation of the building.
24. Camp Wall near "Station Z"
Murder and Mass Murder in the Concentration Camp 1936-1945
The exhibition deals with the history of the site, as well as the concentration camp's various facilities for killing people. In concentrates on separate planned acts of murder and mass murder, including the shooting of more than 10,000 Soviet prisoners-of-war in the autumn of 1941.
29. Tower E
The Town and the Camp – 1936-1945
At the northern end of the camp triangle is Tower E. It houses a small exhibition about various aspects of the relationship between Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp and the surrounding area: the town of Oranienburg and the parish of Sachsenhausen.
31. Soviet Special Camp Museum
The Soviet Special Camp No. 7 / No. 1 in Sachsenhausen 1945-1950
Between 1945 and 1950, the Soviet secret services held a total of around 60,000 people in the core area of the former concentration camp. The museum, which is housed in a new purpose-built exhibition space and two remaining original barracks, documents the history of the Special Camp and the fate of its inmates, at least 12,000 of whom died from hunger and disease.
34. Infirmary Barracks
Medical Care and Crime in the Concentration Camp 1936-1945
The original barracks R I and R II of the infirmary date from when the concentration camp was set up. The "Medical Care and Crime" exhibition examines various aspects of the subject, from medical care to medical experiments on prisoners and the murder of patients. A section is devoted to the men and women who, after the attempt to kill Hitler on 20th July 1944, were brought to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. The role played by Sachsenhausen as a showcase to impress visiting groups from within Germany and abroad is also highlighted.
37. T-Building
System of Terror: the Concentration Camps Inspectorate
Only a few hundred metres away from today's memorial site, there stands
the building that, between 1938 and 1945, housed the administrative
headquarters of the entire concentration camp system. The men who sat
behind desks in the Inspectorate played a significant part in planning and
perpetrating crimes against humanity. It was they who determined
conditions of imprisonment, coordinated forced labour and organised mass
murder. The exhibition is in a room which has remained largely unaltered
since it served as the bureau for the head of the entire concentration
camp system.
