Sachsenhausen concentration camp

Also known as KZ Sachsenhausen, camp Sachsenhausen, Saxonhausen Concentration Camp, Sachsenhausen

Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany (1936-1945)

Key facts

Location: Oranienburg , Germany
Operated by: Schutzstaffel
Commandant: See list
Operational: July 1936 – 22 April 1945
Inmates: Initially German Jews and varied German citizens (divided between racial, political, "career criminal" and "antisocial" inmates), later overwhelmingly (90% by 1944) foreign forced laborers and political prisoners (mostly Polish and Soviet citizens)
Number of inmates: More than 200,000, including around 20,000 women
Killed: Tens of thousands, including at least 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war executed in late 1941
Liberated by: Polish Army's 2nd Infantry Division
Notable inmates: List of prisoners of Sachsenhausen

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Sachsenhausen ( German pronunciation: [zaksn̩ˈhaʊzn̩] ) or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May. It mainly held political prisoners throughout World War II. Prominent prisoners included Joseph Stalin's oldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili; assassin Herschel Grynszpan; Paul Reynaud, the penultimate prime minister of the French Third Republic; Francisco Largo Caballero, prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War; the wife and children of the crown prince of Bavaria; Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera; and several enemy soldiers and political dissidents.

Sachsenhausen was a labour camp, outfitted with several subcamps, a gas chamber, and a medical experimentation area. Prisoners were treated inhumanely, fed inadequately, and killed openly. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used by the NKVD as special camp Nr. 7. Today, Sachsenhausen is open to the public as a memorial.