Sachsenhausen, located in Oranienburg, just north of Berlin, was one of the earliest concentration camps, opening in 1938. Initially it was primarily used to hold Jews and political prisoners but in later years it functioned as a forced labor camp and most of its prisoners were non-Jews from Germany and all over Europe.
The camp prepared daily lists - Veränderungsmeldungen - of arrivals (Zugang) and departures (Abgang), which included deaths. The 4991 persons included in this collection are listed by name, prisoner number and where available, by date of birth and death. The dates listed in this material reflect the date the report was filed, which in some cases may differ from a date of death by a day or two. Dates are in the European manneróday, month, year.
The material categorizes the prisoners in various ways. Many of these categories, such as Berufsverbrecher (implying professional criminal, usually a person who had three convictions, however minor), Arbeitsscheuer (implying work shy or lazy, usually a person who failed to accept assigned work) and &175 (implying homosexual where Paragraph 175 was presumably of some criminal code) were applied in an extremely arbitrary manner. In light of this and privacy considerations, this information has been excluded from the material. Persons seeking such information on individuals for genealogical or other personal reasons may contact Peter W. Landé and this information will be sent to them. Other categories such as Polnisch (Polish), Jude (Jewish), Bibelforscher (Seventh Day Adventist) or Schutzhäftling (literally protected prisoner, but basically a generic category for persons held for other reasons) have been retained.
The time period chosen for this collection was completely arbitrary and there is considerably more filmed material at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and at the Sachsenhausen Gedenkstätte, Strasse der Nationen 22, 16515 Oranienburg, Germany. About 200,000 persons were held at some time between 1938 and 1945 in Sachsenhausen and about 30,000 died there. (This figure does not include the 13-18,000 Soviet prisoners of war who were murdered, but never registered, there). This limited list will, however, serve to illustrate the nature of the broader system and perhaps help some persons seeking information on friends and relatives.
The fields included in this list are as follows:
|Reason for Imprisonment (see translations)|
|Date of Birth|
|Action Taken (see translations)|
|Date of Action|
The information contained in this database was indexed from the files of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (RG 006.025*26). This information is accessible to you today thanks to the effort of the following JewishGen volunteer who is responsible for the transcription of this file: Peter W Landé.