Hannah's RYE year in Switzerland: Berlin - Dresden

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was built in 1936, during the Berlin Olympics so that no one was suspicious of the construction. The public was told it was a rehab centre for people to effectively help society and to throw stones and rocks to help with the prisoners rehabilitation. Hitler injected fear to gain control. He created propaganda to trick people into thinking he was the good guy. Sachsenhausen was a Model camp, everything was tried and tested and then implemented into every other camp. The only flaw in the design was that it was a triangle so it was difficult to expand. Sachsenhausen was 388 hectares. There were several factories that forced the prisoners to work under harsh conditions. The camp was psychologically torturing from the second you walked in. The registration area was beautifully landscaped to create a calm environment to make the prisoners easier to control. The psychological breakdown stripped them of their identity, making them an object of the SS. They all had to have shaved heads and were considered degenerated. They were given either too big or too small wooden clogs for the purpose to live in pain. As well as identical mandatory uniforms and stripped of their own name. They were given numbers and catalogued by the reason they were imprisoned. Such as political figures, common prisoners (already in a prison for rape or murder), gays and Jews. There was a building outside the gates for only the guards to eat and listen to music. He was dead by morning. Jehovah's Witnesses were the only ones allowed to work here due to their faith they were less likely to attack. If anyone stole food from the kitchen they could be punished to death. One man stole a spoonful of margarine - was later forced fed the entire jar and then other prisoners were forced to jump on his stomach to help digestion and then hanged up by his feet. The SS guards were brainwashed from young ages and force fed lies about Jews and Hitler. The ave age is 20.7 y/o. There was a handful of female SS guards, however they couldn't work at the Sachsenhausen camp (all male prisoners) in fear of creating more degenerated children. Many of the children were sent to the gas chamber as they weren't deemed useful. There has been stories of male guards falling in love with female prisoners and so very few men work in the female camps. Tower A was the tallest tower in the camp at the time and reads the slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei” which basically means that work will free you. Believed to be freedom from death. The clockat the top of the tower has stopped at 11:07 the time the camp was liberated. However a camp can't be liberated within a minute so it’s really just more propaganda. It took 3hrs to take the role call of 56000 men. The guards would often extend the role call as a form of torture. The guards were promoted by how brutal their punishments were. One punishment was to stand outside in the snow with no food, water or coat for 13hrs straight, 180 men died from this. From the start to the end of the war, soldiers ate 1500 calories which reduced to 500. When the Red Cross came in and tried to help the prisoners they died from being "over fed” because their bodies weren’t used to consuming a healthy amount of food. Today many of the prisoners who survived aren't able to digest meat. There was often many suicides and documents were faked to hide the truth of cause of death. In 1938 there was 6000 Jews housed in the new extension of the camp. They managed to stack 9 people in bunk beds of 3. They always fought for who was on top because if someone died in the night their body fluids would drip down causing diseases and epidemics. People were often drowned by guards when bathing and on the toilet. There was a separate prison of the camp called Zellenbau - for people who tried to kill Hitler or were against him. One guy spent a year to plan his attack in 1939. However he didn't plan for WW2 beginning and Hitler's speech was cut 20mins short. He missed Hitler by 13mins. The bomb went off and killed 8 people. There was a dividing wall between these prisoners and the rest of the camp to be used to threaten the prisoners that they could be put there. There were different types of torturing devices, which the entire camp could hear their screams. There was a pole that lifted their arms behind them eventually dislocating their shoulders. Also a dungeon where it's impossible to sit or stand comfortably. The prisoners were also put to work in factories and even made to test soles of shoes. They had to walk around the camp for 10hrs with 20kgs on their back. The max was 12 days with medical enhancement drugs. Companies often hired the camp to test their products. Of the holocaust 11m died and 6m were Jewish. The liberation was on 22 April 1945. In 1961 a monuments And two trees were planted to commemorate the liberation - it has 18 triangles believed to represent the 18 different countries. The Statue was propaganda as it displayed the prisoners as healthy and to have hair. In the shooting trenches, they killed in masses. The prisoners were faced with the reality of their death - difficult to control when people know how they will die. It also dawned on the SS guards the reality of killing someone when looking them in the eye. That's why the invented Station Z, an Extermination facility. Prisoners were loaded onto a lorry and then driven around in circles to be disoriented and then driven to a room to be undressed for a “shower". They were gassed and slowly died. They would also trick the prisoners into thinking they were being moved or going to a medical facility. They had music and a full set up of a medical reception. It was merely an excuse to open their mouths to see if they had gold teeth to be used to fund the Nazi army party. If they had gold teeth they were marked with an X, if not a O. The prisoners were asked to stand by a tape measure. There was a second room with a hole between the two rooms, wide enough for a gun. A guard shot the prisoner in the back of the neck with no remorse or attachment. The body is moved for gold teeth pulling and then packaged and cremated. It can fit up to 8-10 people in one oven, 16000 Soviet war prisoners were killed in 10 weeks. This tricked the guards so they thought they didnt have an actually responsibility of killing anyone in part of the holocaust, they were just orders and nothing more or less. The Nazis had even tried to sell ashes back to the prisoners saying it was their loved ones. We then went back on the bus to head to Dresden. We stayed here for lunch for 2hrs for lunch break. I had a burger and then got some ice cream. Then back on the bus for Prague. We arrived at the hotel and had dinner. We then went on a night walk of Prague which was gorgeous. Our group was able to do a lot of things that other groups weren’t, because the chaperons trusted us so they thought it w was a good idea to try new things would with us and taking the city bus and walking around Prague at night was one of those things. Got back to the hotel and had to say good bye to the three exchange students that were only doing the first half of the trip as they would be leaving early the next morning to catch their flights.