Never Forget Sachsenhausen #3 - Music -Sound-Voice

CODE: VJF 2.5

Work:

The study part is planned to include:

• Visit the Sachsenhausen Memorial and learn about its different areas and history.
• Participate in a music and sound workshop (bring your own instrument or music tool)
• Visit the Ravensbrück Memorial (a former concentration camp for women).
• Discuss remembrance culture and meet a descendant of a former concentration camp prisoner.

STUDY PART
Besides the manual work the study component will be an important part of our project. Participants will learn a lot about the time of National Socialism, (i.e. the Nazis) - persecution extermination, and forced labor -as well as about postwar Germany, especially about the Soviet Special Camp which operated at Sachsenhausen until 1950.
Volunteers will have the opportunity to explore the depot and the archive of the memorial site.

*All participants should have a very good knowledge of English and should be interested in history and the present problems of neo-fascism and racism.*

WORK
The common learning at the historical site of Sachsenhausen shall be supplemented by manual work which constitutes the participant´s contribution to the maintenance of the memorial. This part will be rather small. But it means that you should have cloth with you that could get dirty.

Accomodation and food

ACCOMMODATION
You will be accommodated in a youth hostel. The building is on the grounds of historical Sachsenhausen concentration camp complex and was built in 1938 as the official residence of the Concentration Camp Inspector, 2 km away from the memorial center.
It is not necessary to bring a sleeping bag. Bed sheets and linen will be provided. You will sleep in shared rooms with a lot of space. There is no washing machine available. There is a washing salon in town.

FOOD
In the hostel there is a big kitchen for the group. Please be prepared not only to cook there, but also to clean up afterwards! This will be done by the kitchen team of your group. Volunteers will cook the meals for themselves. You don ‘t need to pay by yourself, the camp leader will get a budget for food from VJF. Ideas for cooking are welcome. Please bring recipes and ingredients such as special spices from your home country with you for some culinary exchange.

Location and leisure

Important! Volunteers must be able to ride a bike, because various shorter and longer
bicycle-tours are planned. Bicycles are provided, but helmets are not.

In the free time it's possible to go to Berlin or Potsdam. Volunteers will find many forests and lakes to walk, cycle or just relax. However, the free time activities will mainly depend on participants' ideas.

Project hosted by

Sachsenhausen is a district of Oranienburg, about 33 km north of Berlin. In 1936, the Sachsenhausen concentration camp was established there. It served as a site of forced labor, imprisonment, and violence against people persecuted by the Nazi regime, including political opponents, Jewish people, LGBTQ+ individuals, Sinti and Roma, people with disabilities, individuals marginalized as 'social outsiders' and many others, especially from occupied countries during the war. Thousands were victims of murder and brutal abuse.
Before Sachsenhausen, in 1933, the first state concentration camp was set up in Oranienburg. This camp mainly held political opponents and was later used for Nazi propaganda. It closed in 1934, and many prisoners were transferred elsewhere. Sachsenhausen later became a central camp in the Nazi system, used for SS training and forced labor in industries like brickworks and arms production. In 1945, as the war ended, many prisoners were forced on death marches. Soviet troops liberated the remaining inmates on April 22, 1945.
After the war, part of the site was used as a Soviet special camp. Today, Sachsenhausen is a memorial and museum dedicated to remembering the victims. More information is available at :https://www.sachsenhausen-sbg.de/en/

Directions to meeting point

The Youth Hostel is situated in Oranienburg a city north of Berlin. From wherever you arrive in Berlin, the best thing to do is to go to a train station and ask for a plan of U-Bahn- und S-Bahn. Here you can also find an online-map:
fahrinfo.bvg.de/Fahrinfo/bin/query.bin/en?ujm=1&MapLayer=NETWORK
You can also use google maps.

From Airport Berlin-Brandenburg:
There is different ways to get to the Workcamp. Here is one option:
There are signs leading you through an underground tunnel to the -Bahn station. There you take the train RB 14 (direction Nauen) or RE7 (direction Dessau) to S+U Friedrichstraße. Then you need to take S1 (direction Oranienburg.
Leave the train in S Oranienburg

Just in front of the station Oranienburg you can get the 805 (every hour) in the
direction “Liebenwalde”. On the arrival day, the bus rides from 4:40 a.m. - 8:03
p.m. Make sure not to miss the last bus!
Get off at the stop “Oranienburg Jugendherberge” and cross the street. It takes 5 min.

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