Name: Berlin Hohenschonhausen Memorial
Address: Genslerstrasse 66, Berlin, Berlin, DE
Telephone: +493098608230

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More than 20,000 people passed through Special Camp No. 3 on their way to other Soviet camps.
See the former kitchen’s underground jail, where prisoners built 68 windowless cells.

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The “U-Boot” basement jailPrisoners called the 68-cell basement jail the “U-Boot” because they could not see outside and felt hidden from the world.Former kitchen’s underground storage and cooling room; shown on guided visitsWinter 1946–47
The later prison buildingBuilt with prisoner labour, it contained cells and interrogation rooms and began operating in 1961.Beside the cellar prison; shown on guided visitsLate 1950s–1961

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1945
Official figures record 886 deaths at Special Camp No. 3 from July 1945 to October 1946; independent estimates reach 3,000.
Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial - Wikipedia
Prisoners included writer Jürgen Fuchs, painter Bärbel Bohley and SED critic Rudolf Bahro.
Gedenkstätte Berlin-Hohenschönhausen - Wikipedia
After the Wall fell, demonstrators did not storm the prison; this reportedly allowed authorities to destroy evidence.
Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial - Wikipedia
Prisoners called the hospital’s outdoor exercise cells “tiger cages.”
Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial - Wikipedia

The site changed from a Soviet detention and transit camp to a Soviet prison, then to a prison run by East Germany’s Ministry of State Security.

1939A red-brick building was completed as a soup-kitchen supply factory.
June 1945The Soviet NKVD turned the area into Special Camp No. 3, a detention and transit camp.
October 1946Special Camp No. 3 closed; the compound then served as a Soviet prison.
1951The East German Ministry of State Security reopened the prison.
1961The new prison began operating. After the Berlin Wall was built, it mainly held people who wanted or tried to leave East Germany.

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1972The hospital wing was enlarged.
1989–1990The prison stopped operating in 1989 and officially closed in 1990.
1992–1994The prison buildings received heritage protection in 1992; the memorial began operating on the site in 1994.

Where

Genslerstrasse 66, Berlin

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