A picture I shot years ago on a visit to the former concentration camp in Sachsenhausen near Berlin. Although highly interesting it was also a striking dispiriting visit. The girl on the right hand side shows my friend and I think we were both happy to make this trip not alone....

The sign in the middle of the photograph, showing the main entrance gate, says "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" - "Work makes free" - the highly cynical slogan of many CC's of the Nazi regime.

The Sachsenhausen concentration camp was built in 1936/37 by prisoners on command of the German SS. The camp held approximately 200.000 prisoners, representing more than 40 different nationalities. The people imprisoned included Jews, Sinti and Roma, POWs, homosexuals, political prisoners, members of the resistance against the Nazi Regime, so called "lazy individuals", professional and habitual criminals, and sex offenders. It is estimated that 100.000 prisoners died in the Sachsenhausen camp. The main causes of dead were poison gas, neck shots and insufficiently treated Typhus.