The most important that that I learned about Sachsenhausen was that nobody really knew that it was going on. Even in Germany some people thought that it was a myth. The main reasons that people were not aware of Sachsenhausen was because of the censorship and really strict state press. At the time there were not many modes of communication, that is one of the reasons that the United States did not enter into the war until later. When you entered there was a code of honor that you were not allowed to talk about the work camp. They would work 12 hour days, with no breaks. On average people would make it for eight weeks.
Working with the bricks were the stones, lugging around 60 lb rocks for 12 hours straight. Working in the kitchen was obviously the easiest job that you could get. All of the camps were run by the SS. Hitler’s leading class and “superior race” was people with blond hair and blue eyes. His second class was “humans,” such as Spaniards, French and Italians. His third class were “sub humans,” or Slavic people. His fourth class were Gypsies and his last class were the Jews. The higher up on the classes you were the more privileges you could get in the camp. The work camps were the better of the different concentration camps. People hoped for survival. 80% of people survived in the work camps, but 90% of people died in the death camps. So there was almost no chance of survival if you were sent to a death camp. Although when the world started to see what Hitler was doing to these people, their priority was defeating Germany and not liberating prisoners.
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