GUIDED TOUR OF THE SACHSENHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP MEMORIAL
SPANISH VICTIMS OF NATIONAL SOCIALISM
On 11/12/2021 took place the visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial. Organized by the Werkstatt für Sozialforschung e.V., 16 Spanish speakers participated.
The guide detailed the history of the camp and its role in the National Socialist system of exploitation and extermination, how it replaced one of the so-called "savage" concentration camps located in the center of Oranienburg and how, after the defeat of the Nazis, it was occupied by Russian troops.
He detailed the functioning of the concentration camp and its more than 100 subcamps, its close links with German industry, the subhuman living conditions that the prisoners had to endure, as well as the extermination and mass executions that took place there. Our guide detailed the life of the prisoners in the concentration camp and the labor exploitation in companies such as the Heinkel factory that produced components for the aircraft industry or the subhuman conditions in the Klinkerwerk brick factory.
One of the central points of our visit was to remember the approximately 200 Spaniards who passed through this camp and to reconstruct their trajectories and experiences through the testimonies left by Francisco Largo Caballero, José Carabasa or Pedro Martín, among others. Most of them had been detained in France, where some were part of the French resistance, while others were part of the work system of the different French governments. It emphasizes the importance of the contribution that the Spanish Republican survivors of the Sachsenhausen camp made to the recovery of memory.
He dedicated a special section to Francisco Largo Caballero, Minister of War and President of the Government of the Second Republic, who was transferred to Sachsenhausen in August 1943 and remained in the camp until his liberation by Russian troops on April 22, 1945.
Precisely democratic memory was a recurring theme of the visit. The guide stressed the importance of historical memory being considered a collective task by society as a whole. She explained the history of the network of memorials throughout Germany as an essential part of Germany's historical memory policy.