I'm skipping Munich for the moment, because it was merely a 16 hour stop over (some of those spent sleeping) to break up the trip to Berlin, and I did very little there, I made it to the Residenz and the English Gardens, but that was all.
No, I'm going to pick up my trip again, right after I arrived in Berlin. My first day there I went to Sachsenhausen, the first concentration camp from World War II.
The day was bleak and grey, which seemed to fit the mood of visiting a place where so many suffered and died. On my way to meet a walking tour I debated with myself about the idea of taking photos at the concentration camp. Was that a disrespectful thing to do? After much debate (which continued through the train ride and walk to the camp), I came to the same conclusion my friend Megan did when she was at Auschwitz. I took the photos, because I needed to never forget the human suffering that happened, the absolute sheer brutality and cruelty that took place in an organized orderly fashion because eugenics and politics willed it be so.
Taking a walking tour, having a guide, made it so much better in terms of comprehension of the magnitude of everything. Part of the site is still standing, but a large portion has been burnt out, and if you do not have someone with you the likelihood of you understanding everything is greatly diminished.
First we met our guide and gathered while she told us some of the history of Sachsenhausen. It was first opened in 1936 and officially closed in 1945 when the Soviets liberated the area. It is also known as Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. After taking a quick regional train out to the area, and a brisk walk, we came upon this building, the main governance offices.I suppose I was dumbfounded by the next photo. We were just walking along, and coming upon the gate really drove home for me what I was seeing and experiencing.
We then toured one of the restructured and reinforced barracks, where many had taken the opportunity to leave small memorials inside the building. This particular barracks that we toured originally housed Jewish men.
The next place we went was the underground crematorium, and even though it's mostly a burnt out shell, I still found myself moved entirely to tears at this point. Inside the crematorium area, there is another memorial as well, also laden with flowers. I also learned at this point, that most of the crematoriums at German concentration camps were not built until later in the war period, because the original belief was to keep the blood of people such as the Roma, the Senti, and the Jews, outside of Germany. So Sachsenhausen was a work camp, not a death camp, such as Auschwitz. That said, it was still horrifying. 
We went through a brief museum after this point, made from another restructured barracks. Within this museum, they had remnants of a few leftover uniforms, where once again, I felt myself tearing up. Looking at the different triangles, and remembering the fact that these men were reduced to being merely a number and dehumanized systematically, just because they were seen as different, or outside the system is a horrific idea to my personal ideals, and especially to my religious beliefs.
The last few things of note, were that during the period of Nazi control, there were many medical experiments that were started here at Sachsenhausen. They went on at other places too, but many of the eugenics experiments were started at Sachsenhausen.
During the Soviet period the camp operated from 1945-1950 as NVKD Special Camp no. 7. Horrifying all around, from all sides. In 1950, the Soviets closed the camp and erected this memorial.
The memorial is typically "soviet" according to our tour guide, in it's construction, the orange colored brick, and the sizing of the statues as "large, robust" figures. the orange triangles, should actually be red, which was the color for political prisoners indentification badges.
I think everyone should have to visit a concentration camp. If we ignore history, we will certainly repeat it.
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