Berlin: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp Tour & Oranienburg

★★★★★★★★★★ 4.89 (5,925 reviews) 92% rated it 5 stars

Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/27

Duration5h 30m

GroupUp to 28

LanguagesEN

Mobile ticketAccepted

What Sachsenhausen reveals about how a town became complicit

You travel by train from central Berlin to Oranienburg, walk through the town to understand local complicity, then spend hours inside Sachsenhausen with a licensed guide trained by the memorial. Entry, transport, and a €3 donation are included; the guide handles all logistics and returns you to the city centre by day's end.

5h 30m

Step-by-step itinerary

Visit Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Take train from Berlin to Oranienburg
Walk around Oranienburg with guide
Learn about townsfolk and inmate work
Tour Sachsenhausen camp interiors
See barracks, prison and torture cells
Visit camp kitchen and Station Z
Explore gas chamber and crematorium
View infirmaries and pathology center
See Tower A main guard tower

The Experience

Why does a place like this matter to visit? Because Sachsenhausen was the first concentration camp built from scratch — not repurposed, not improvised, but designed as a centre of terror. It's in Oranienburg, about an hour by train from Berlin, and the tour doesn't just walk you through the barracks and cells. It shows you the town itself, the streets where locals lived while the camp operated, and how ordinary people were woven into an extraordinary horror. Your licensed guide, trained by the memorial authority, walks you through that complicity alongside the prisoners' stories of resilience.

The day starts at S+U Friedrichstraße in central Berlin — arrive 15 minutes early and you'll take the train out to Oranienburg with your guide. Once there, you walk the town first, seeing where inmates were forced to work, understanding how the community was connected to what happened behind the fence. Then you enter Sachsenhausen itself. The tour moves through the punishment cells, the infirmary, the old barracks, Tower A (the main guard tower), and Station Z, where mass executions took place. You'll see the gas chamber and crematorium. It's not rushed; the guide gives you time to absorb each location and the stories attached to it. The whole experience is fully guided — no self-navigation, no confusion about where to go or what you're looking at.

Entry to the Sachsenhausen Memorial is included, and so is the €3 per person donation that supports the site's ongoing work. You'll also visit the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, the administrative centre that controlled the Nazi camp system across Europe — a detail that shifts how you understand the scale of what happened. By late afternoon, your guide brings you back to Berlin's city centre, so you don't have to navigate the return journey alone. Wear good walking shoes; there's moderate walking involved, and the ground is uneven in places.

What’s included

Your day includes hotel or city-centre pickup at the meeting point, train transport to Oranienburg with your guide, a walking tour of Oranienburg town, full entry to the Sachsenhausen Memorial, a licensed English-language guide trained by the memorial authority, visits to the barracks, punishment cells, infirmary, gas chamber, crematorium, and the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps, and return transport to central Berlin. A €3 per person donation to the Sachsenhausen Memorial is included.

Good to know

Moderate physical levelStroller friendlyPets welcomePublic transport nearbyNot for heart conditions

Operated by Insider Tour Berlin

Is this one for you?This tour is for anyone who wants to understand this history with expert context and without arranging transport or entry separately — the guide's training and the memorial's authority make the weight of the place bearable and clear.