The other (slightly longer) way is to walk directly from Oranienburg station. Take the left exit, turn right and follow the scattered "Gedenkstatte Sachsenhausen" (memorial site) signs to the camp. To get from KZ Sachsenhausen to Oranienburg, you can walk back on Strase der Nationen, cross the street and keep going until you reach the tracks, then turn left and follow them to the station.
As the Red Army approached in 1945, the prisoners were marched off towards the North Sea in a death march that claimed over 6000 lives. After the camp's capture (and inclusion in the DDR), the Soviets immediately turned the tables (albeit not on innocent citizens) and interned suspected Nazi functionaries in what now became Special Camp No. 7, killing (another) 12000 war criminals and perpetrators of Nazi terror before the camp was closed in 1950.
Neglected for several decades afterward, in the 1960s the camp was refitted by the Communists and opened as a museum commemorating Anti-Fascistic Struggle, entirely neglecting all non-Communist victims. Israel protested so loudly that a Jewish Museum was soon opened on the grounds. After the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet-era camp was rediscovered, documented and added to the exhibits. Israel's prime minister Yitzhak Rabin visited in 1992; several weeks afterward the Jewish barracks were hit in an arson attack by neo-Nazis. At time of writing, construction of a new building devoted to the Soviet camp as well as the reconstruction of the gas chamber complex and the Klinkerwerk satellite camp (about 2 km NE of Sachsenhausen) is under way.
The inmates of KZ-Sachsenhausen were a varied group. While a number of Jews were interned, mostly before 1942, the bulk of the population was political prisoners of various kinds, especially actual or suspected Communists, many rounded up in mass actions with little if any evidence against them. Other groups included "asocials" (artists, playwrights, etc), foreign nationals, homosexuals and Roma (Gypsies). In accordance with standard KZ practice, all inmates — including children — were tattooed with their ID numbers.
Despite the lack of advertising, the camp itself is quite nicely presented with a number of excellent exhibits, especially the newer post-GDR sections. Some of the older exhibits, however, are only in German (and occasionally Russian). Nearly all the buildings on the site are authentic-looking reconstructions, many old building sites are only marked by stones. Entrance is free.
:''First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out— <br> because I was not a Communist; <br> Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—<br> because I was not a socialist; <br> Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— <br> because I was not a trade unionist; <br> Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— <br> because I was not a Jew; <br> Then they came for me— <br> and there was no one left to speak out for me.''
Prison regulations extensively detailed permissible methods of torture; quite a few of the exhibit texts seem to be more annoyed by the fact that the guards occasionally exceeded the rules than by the fact that they were using torture in the first place. Official favorites included suspension from poles (resulting in bone dislocation and a slow, painful death), beating with iron truncheons and whipping (not allowed on bare buttocks until the regulations were amended in 1942).
In 1942, the additional section known only as Station Z was constructed. Designed for murdering people clinically and quickly, Station Z consisted of a gas chamber, a firing range and a crematorium. While small in comparison with the death factories of places like Auschwitz, on several occasions up to 5000 people in several days were executed here.
At time of writing, only the ruins of Station Z are left, and since the ground underneath them is subsiding, the area is roped off. A reconstruction of the area is in the works.
The exact number of the Nazis' victims will never be known, as the bodies were cremated and, on the approach of the Red Army, some 8 or 9 tons of human ashes were dumped into a nearby canal. The victims of the death march, immediately before the liberation of the camp, are better commemorated with memorial stones set up along the route. The Soviets were less careful and left several mass graves in the vicinity of the camp, which have been duly (and perhaps even slightly disproportionately) marked.
A small '''shop''' by the entrance stocks mainly books about concentration camps and the Nazi era. You may also purchase pamphlets about KZ Sachsenhausen in several languages from here (a token €0.50 each).
There are no facilities in the immediate vicinity of the camp, but there are restaurants near Oranienburg station. Almost all visitors day-trip from Berlin.