Dachau was one of the worst and most notorious death camps and the scene of hundreds of medical experiments carried out on inmates. Initially filled with Communist and Jewish inmates, Dachau's doors were soon opened to the many other undesirables that the Nazis wanted to eradicate. Between 1941 and 1942, over 500 horrendous medical operations were performed on healthy prisoners. In the last year of the war more than 40,000 prisoners perished in Dachau.

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was one of the first unofficial concentration camps established by the SA in 1933. The administration of the concentration camps was instituted in Sachsenhausen, a district of Oranienburg since 1936. The town was home to one of the largest concentration camps in the German Reich. The construction of the camp, the day-to-day life in it, and the suffering of the 20,000 prisoners from many countries are the subjects of this film.