Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin - Centrum Judaicum

Meet your guide in front of the former imperial post office on Oranienburger Straße. Explore the neighboring New Synagogue—a remarkable architectural landmark in the heart of Berlin’s former Jewish quarter. Built when the German Empire was founded, it stands as a symbol of the integration and vibrant Jewish life that flourished during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic. Learn how, five years after the Nazi dictatorship came to power, open physical violence against Jewish Germans began. Discover why the largest synagogue in Germany, unlike many others, survived the pogroms of 1938. We will then follow the traces of thousands of arrested Jews to Sachsenhausen. The escalation of antisemitic terror took on a new dimension in 1938, a development that would culminate six years later in the murder of millions. From here we will do the train-ride in direction north to the town of Oranienburg.

From the station, we walk to the memorial site—following the same route prisoners were forced to take—and discuss the camp’s visibility and what its presence meant for the surrounding community. Oranienburg was strategically located: close to Berlin, on a major railway line to the Baltic Sea, and surrounded by local industries that both supplied and demanded forced labor. The town had already been the site of an early “wild camp” in 1933/34, and the castle was handed over to the SS as a garrison. The mayor actively promoted Oranienburg, and in 1936 it was chosen as THE location for the model camp of a new generation of concentration camps. Built with forced labor, it emerged at a time when the world was turning its attention to the "glorious" Olympic Games taking place nearby in Berlin. Learn why the U.S. Air Force carried out a heavy bombing raid on the area just one month before liberation.