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About 20km northwest out of Berlin at the terminus of S-Bahn #1 is ORANIENBURG , a drab-looking place set apart from dozens of other towns around the capital by a monument that recalls the grimmest chapter in German history - the Konzentrationslager Sachsenhausen . This concentration camp, now officially known as the Gedenkstatte und Museum Sachsenhausen (Tues-Sun: April-Sept 8.30am-6pm; Oct-March 8.30am-4.30pm; free) is in the northern suburb of Sachsenhausen. It's reached from S-Bahnhof Oranienburg by bus #273 or on foot after a twenty-minute walk. A tree-lined road leads to a museum devoted to the history of the camp and special exhibitions. Just north of here is Turm A , the gatehouse entrance to the camp proper with a stretch of the original electrified camp fence running either side of it. Beyond Turm A is the Apellplatz , or parade ground, where the prisoners were gathered together for roll call and often kept standing for hours on end or forced to witness executions on the camp gallows . Behind the gallows, in four semicircular rows, were the barrack buildings , originally intended to hold 130 prisoners in cramped conditions but each filled by the end of the war with up to 500 men. Only two remain: one now houses a museum , the other is a memorial hall where documentaries are regularly shown. The museum itself dates from the GDR and very much reflects the Communist viewpoint of that country; after unification, it was decided to retain the exhibition within as a part of the camp's history. The positions of the other barracks are marked with granite blocks. Beyond them is an open space leading to the stylized camp memorial . Many of the victims commemorated by the memorial died nearby at Station Z , where the Germans turned the process of executing Soviet prisoners of war into an almost industrial one, dispatching tens of thousands of men with shots to the back of the neck. At the opposite side of the camp are two surviving barrack blocks used to house Jewish inmates , with a special exhibition devoted to their sufferings. In September 1992, these barracks were set on fire by young right-wing radicals, and the burnt walls remaining have been incorporated into the  © 2003 by Rough Guides Ltd. as trustee for its Authors. Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved. Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd. Buy the book here!
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exhibit. Just beyond here are cells where prominent prisoners, mainly workers' leaders and patriots from the occupied countries, were held in isolation, usually pending execution. One of the inmates best known to posterity is the anti-Nazi cleric, Pastor Martin Niemoller , who was one of the few to survive incarceration here. At the northeast end of the grounds is an exhibition devoted to the history of Sachsenhausen after 1945, when it was used as a special camp by the Soviets.
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