Meet your guide in front of the former imperial post office on Oranienburger Straße. Explore the neighboring New Synagogue—a remarkable architectural landmark in the heart of Berlin’s former Jewish quarter. Built when the German Empire was founded, it stands as a symbol of the integration and vibrant Jewish life that flourished during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. Learn how, five years after the Nazi dictatorship came to power, open physical violence against Jewish Germans began. Discover why the largest synagogue in Germany, unlike many others, survived the pogroms of 1938. We will then follow the traces of thousands of arrested Jews to Sachsenhausen. The escalation of antisemitic terror took on a new dimension in 1938, a development that would culminate six years later in the murder of millions. From here we will do the train-ride in direction north to the town of Oranienburg.

From the station, we walk to the memorial site—following the same route prisoners were forced to take—and discuss the camp’s visibility and what its presence meant for the surrounding community. Oranienburg was strategically located: close to Berlin, on a major railway line to the Baltic Sea, and surrounded by local industries that both supplied and demanded forced labor. The town had already been the site of an early “wild camp” in 1933/34, and the castle was handed over to the SS as a garrison. The mayor actively promoted Oranienburg, and in 1936 it was chosen as THE location for the model camp of a new generation of concentration camps. Built with forced labor, it emerged at a time when the world was turning its attention to the "glorious" Olympic Games taking place nearby in Berlin. Learn why the U.S. Air Force carried out a heavy bombing raid on the area just one month before liberation.

We stop at today’s tax office, the former headquarters of the Inspectorate of the Concentration Camps, to talk about the central role Sachsenhausen played in the vast concentration camp system. From this building, the SS directed and administered more than 1,000 camps and subcamps across Europe. Here, you’ll learn about the rise of the “SS state” within the Nazi dictatorship—how the SS gradually pushed aside the Brownshirts, how Heinrich Himmler expanded the SS into a “state within a state” with nearly one million members, and how the concentration camp system was transformed into a highly organized and profitable instrument of exploitation.

We will spend about two hours at the memorial site. The grounds are extensive, so we will need to do some walking. There will be an opportunity to take a coffee break. Along the way, we will stop at several locations and discuss the following topics. • Overview at the large entrance map • Tower A shows the perpetrators’ perspective • Pass through the infamous “Arbeit macht frei” gate • Enter the roll-call square • The dehumanizing “check-in” process • Violence dominated daily routines • “Shoe-testing” track as a nightmare job • Original barracks built like a cowshed • Cold, disease and starvation killed many • “Special prisoners” isolated in the Zellenbau • Survival strategies against all odds • Station Z – mass killing and cremation of tens of thousands • Infirmary as a site of medical crimes • The White Buses also reached Sachsenhausen • The bizarre camp brothel • Death marches before liberation • How German society faced this barbarism • How humankind can avoid repetition

It’s time to return to Berlin. We will make our way to Oranienburg train station and take the train back to the city.