Allergy sufferers unite!

The trade-off for the nice spring-like weather is that I'm sniffly with a low grade headache all day. Fellow bloggers, I see your lovely photos of your early sprouting flowers, but I could deal with a little less of that and a little more of the cold, white, heavy, white stuff instead. ;-)

However, during my recent travel for planning for Innsbruck, I came across Kuetai, which is in the Innsbruck region. It is selling itself as a summer destination for allergy sufferers, due to its high altitude, thereby offering an escape from pollen in these months. Here is their English page on the topic, where they beckon me to come for 'an allergy vacation.'

Let the summer holiday planning commence...

Inside Mauthausen Concentration Camp (near Linz)

The view from inside the front gate:

From the far end, looking back toward the front gate:

A wall inside one of the buildings, lined with memorials and remembrances:

The creamatorium from the outside:

The camp jail from the outside:

Mauthausen Concentration Camp (near Linz)

On Easter Sunday I took a trip to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria. Last year in May, I went to Katowice to see Auschwitz in Poland, but this one is quite different. Mauthausen is on the top of a hill overlooking beautiful hills, valleys and farms. Here is the view of outside of the compound as one approaches. Much of the complex access is currently restricted due to some maintenance and building works that are being done.

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.