Mauthausen is famous as one of the worst of the Nazi camps, it was a category 3, which was designed for people not to be later released but instead worked to death. Often in Holocaust films you see footage of many men carrying stones up a set of steps, these are those steps. Mauthausen was chosen for its location next to a quarry rich in granite that would be needed to supply Linz and other cities with new Nazi buildings.
The Mauthausen Camp had a long history in the Holocaust. The building of the camp started soon after Austria's annexation in Mar 1938 and it remained open and receiving prisoners from other camps that were cleared in advance of the Allies. It was liberated on 5 May 1945. All told, almost 200,000 came through its gates and 100,000 survived.
Because of its purpose and history, many nationalities were there. They have turned the grounds outside the camp into an area for memorials, and everywhere you look there is another memorial, sometimes with countries erecting another memorial for another occasion. The former Soviet Bloc countries later contributed their own monuments in the 1990's once they were free. Here are some of the monuments I saw.
Israel:
Next to Israel is Germany:
Slovenia:
More photos tomorrow.
2 comments:
I visited 2 concentration camps when I lived in Poland - Auschwitz (twice) and Majdanek (near Lublin). I have no interest in visiting others. Those two were enough for me.
Josep Borrell, President of the European Parliament on Auschwitz:
"It is hard to keep a just memory of these events without having been there. It is a battle against the weakness of human memory. But if we forget history we are condemned to repeat it."
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