Tag Archives: Holocaust

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

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Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp (Orienienburg, Germany)
A Morbid Must-See!

I visited this compelling concentration camp in the former East Germany in the summer of 2014 with a couple of friends who are of the non-morbid persuasion.  I didn’t think they’d be very interested, so I tried to be polite and only allowed a few hours for the visit.  As it turned out, they were every bit as fascinated by this tragic site as I was and we all wished that we’d had a full day to explore.  They have done an incredible job of reconstructing the horror of life and death in the camp via first person accounts and memorabilia, with an especially huge collection of medical history memorabilia.  I highly recommend that if you go, you allot a full day and get there early!

The account of my visit can be read on my Forlorn Photography site:
Nineteen Thirty-Sick!

House of Terror

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House of Terror (Budapest, Hungary)

mattsochoki writes to recommend this site: “I found an article about this place which is a museum in Budapest to the communist secret police, it was also their former headquarters. The real treat is that I did some searching and found the official website for the place. [There are] some really interesting photos of the inside of this place. I highly recommend checking it out. I found it incredibly interesting that they not only acknowledged the communist secret police but made a whole museum.”

Rick Steves has an excellent article about this site, which includes the following fascinating info: “Budapest has recently opened one of the most powerful museums in Europe. Featuring the grim decades of Nazi and Communist repression, the museum is the former headquarters for the secret police of both the Nazi and Communist governments. The building’s awning has the word TERROR cut out of it, and when the sun projects through these letters, it symbolizes the terror which was projected onto the Hungarian people for fifty years. After allying themselves with Hitler to save their own skins (and their Jewish population), Hungary was overtaken by the Nazi-affiliated Arrowcross in the waning days of World War II. Arrowcross members did their best to exterminate Budapest’s Jews. They killed Jews one-by-one in the streets, and were known to tie several victims together, shoot one of them, and throw him into the freezing Danube—dragging the others in with him. They executed hundreds in the basement of this building.”

Holocaust Memorial (Berlin)

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Holocaust Memorial (Berlin, Germany)

Berlin Holocaust Memorial by K.

Berlin Holocaust Memorial by K.

K. suggests this site: “I don’t know I would strictly say this is a morbid sightseeing example, although if you include the museum underneath it might qualify. Regardless, it certainly is worth a wander through if you are in that part of the world.

“In 2005 I was backpacking through Europe, and made a point of getting to Berlin to do a tour of the city. On the tour we stopped at many places including the remaining sections of the wall, Hitler’s hiding place and the Holocaust Memorial. It was the memorial that intrigued me the most. It is made up of hundreds of pillars all of differing heights, and placed on the ground which was a series of dips and rises. Our guide explained that part of the reason for the design was to show how you might meet up with people for a while, but then turn off and only see people for a second before they disappear behind another pillar, which was an effort to show how people passed each other in the death camps during the Holocaust as they were shifted around.

“The thing that really intrigued me was part of the controversy of the memorial. Each pillar is covered with what they call an ‘Anti-graffiti agent’, made by a company called Degussa, making it possible for any graffiti to be easily washed off. Yet Degussa also made Zyklon B Gas, which was used by the Germans in their gas chambers during the Holocaust.

“A lot of people on the tour thought this was appalling, however I thought it to be quite fitting. Sure it could more than likely come down to their bottom line and how much profit/publicity they could get off it, hell that is what business is about after all, but I prefer to think they saw how they had contributed in such a horrific way, and this is some small way of saying sorry.

“There are heaps of articles about it on the net, here is one where I checked info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4531669.stm

“I have attached a photo I took while in the middle of the memorial. You can see how the ground looks like a wave, and how high the pillars get. It really is quite unnerving being in there after hearing all the tales of what happened.”

Holocaust Museum

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Holocaust Museum (Washington, D.C.)
Den of Asps recommends this site: “I’ve been to the Holocaust museum once or twice, and think it’s well worth it: it’s one of the few museums downtown for which there’s an admittance charge, and you should get there early as the lines can be long, but it’s got some remarkably striking rooms in it.”