Falkensee
Between January and October 1943 a large satellite camp was set up for Sachsenhausen in a suburb west of Berlin called Falkensee. When the camp was completed in October, it consisted of some thirty barracks and between 1600 and 2500 prisoners from all parts of Europe were incarcerated. The prisoners were hired out as slave workers to Deutschen Maschinen AG (DEMAG), which manufactured war material. About 850 prisoners were also forced to work at the Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk Grünewald. The conditions were equivalent to those in other satellite camps. Food shortage, lack of medicine, inadequate hygiene facilities, spread of diseases, dangerous work with insufficient tools and knowledge how to use them and the arbitrary actions of the Kapos and SS personnel contributed to a high mortality rate. Those who died or were murdered were taken back to Sachsenhausen where they were cremated in the crematorium. The camp was liberated by the Soviet Red army on April 26, 1945.
Current status: Demolished wit monument (2012).
Address: Hamburger Strasse 32, 14612 Falkensee.
Get there: Car.
Follow up in books: Kogon, Eugen: The Theory and Practice of Hell: The German Concentration Camps and the System Behind Them (2006).
The Camp was more or less intact after the war but the remaining barracks were dilapidated and torned down during the fifties. When it was urgent to put up camps like Falkensee, it was done hastingly and not necessarily properly done. Therefore they quickly fell in despair after the war. Nowadays the former camp area and the remaining ruins is a memorial park with a number of monuments.