Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Mauthausen Walkabout

We woke up to a somber, cold and drizzling day (winter in July!)...which seemed appropriate since today was our visit to the Mauthausen Concentration/Slave Camp (now a memorial) near Vienna, Austria.

Surrounded by scenic rolling hills and farmland along the Danube river, Mauthausen's location was chosen due to its proximity to granite quarries. After the inmates (mostly from Poland, the Soviet Union and Hungary) built the camp (which looks eerily like a castle), their job was to provide building materials for monumental and prestigious buildings in Nazi Germany. Almost 200,000 people were deported to Mauthausen between 1938 and 1945 and around 100,000 died there from starvation, exhaustion, and various other ways too horrible to mention. Simon Wiesenthal is one of Mauthausen's most notorious survivors and after liberation he devoted his life to hunting down Nazis to make sure they were punished.

Our private guide, Wolfgang, took us on a thought-provoking, interactive, and reflective walking tour of the camp for two hours. He left us with this haunting question, "Why would humans do this, and since we know they did, how could they?"

I hesitated to post photos but decided the topic is worth sharing since as time passes (more than 70 years since this camp was opened), we tend to become desensitized to crimes against humanity. This is one period of history we shouldn't forget.


Barracks on the left, processing on the right.


Discussions with Wolfgang


The stairs of death...which the inmates used to get into the quarry and carry up the stones. Beautiful farms and houses were just yards away, either oblivious to or ignoring what was happening in the camp.


Prisoners were told, "You entered through the gate and will leave through the chimney." So horrible and sad.

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Hungarian Memorial - VICTORY!

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