Top Berlin Day Trips

I almost decided against going on this tour, but I'm glad I went. Of course the subject matter of this tour is very serious, and when most people are on vacation they aren't looking to do things so emotionally heavy, but I would recommend this tour. My tour guide was Ronja, who was an excellent guide. We met as a group of around 17 people outside the train station. After covering some basic info, including having Ronja take stock of who had train tickets and who needed to get one in the station, we headed to the platform. She helped those without tickets in purchasing one, then we boarded the train to the station nearest the camp. After arriving, Ronja made sure everyone made it off the train and re-grouped before walking around 10-15 minutes through town to the site. She allowed some time for a bathroom break, before beginning the tour. The tour itself was very matter of fact. The subject matter is sad enough on its own, so I appreciated the straightforward telling of the history of the place. History about Sachsenhausen was interwoven with information about other locations, as well as a recounting about how the camp came about, how it existed during WWII, as well as what happened there afterwards. It was very fascinating to see, despite being so tragic. Again, Ronja was a fantastic guide, as she was not only very informative during the tour, but also friendly and helpful. She was open to every question, and actually said she enjoyed the very few questions she didn't have an answer for, as it gave her a reason to look something up. Sometimes she even looked some of the questions up on the spot on her phone during some downtime, though she was also open to admitting that she didn't have all the answers to such a vast topic. Also, as mentioned a bit before, she was very helpful with the transit, such as after the group arrived back in Berlin, she was helping point people to their best train options so they could get where they needed to go. Although Sachsenhausen doesn't have the name recognition as some of the other camps, I highly recommend both visiting and this tour specifically. As Ronja mentioned at the end of the tour, it is important to visit these locations and keep the memory of this part of history alive.