Trip to Mauthausen October 11

In Salzburg of late there has been a lot of press about the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the second world war and television stations are showing film footage and exploring the reactions of Austrians all over (both the positive and the negative) as the Nazis came in.  The financial situation was glum and generally the Nazis were welcomed in with open arms. Salzburg, too, had rallies for Hitler and was the only Austrian city that held a public book burning.

Mindful of this past, we always bring the students to Mauthausen, where the primary Austrian concentration camp was located (8 August 1938, to 5 May 1945). Primary camp, because there were eventually over 100 sub-camps located around Austria and southern Germany that were grouped under the main camp.)

The day was sunny and beautiful and would make quite a contrast to the grizzly subject matter.

The camp was on a hill and was huge.

Before we went on the tour we had lunch in the cafeteria.

In order to make the SS people seem important and valued, no expense was spared in their accomodations. Here we see a swimming pool near the entrance to the camp that advertises the luxury and significance that the officers enjoyed.

Just across from the pool was a field where exhibition soccer matches were held to show off the healthy, sportive officers, but fields which also later housed Russian prisoners in abject conditions and a "hospital" area for the hopelessly ill.

 

You might recognize some of our students down there exploring the area.

We took the long way into the camp, the road the prisoners would have had to take.

Mauthausen was not a so-called "death camp" until very near the end of the war. Mostly they exploited the prisoners for slave labor, working them to death in the quarries and munitions factories to supply the war.

Most of the barracks have been torn down, but these were left standing as an example of what the camp looked like when it was running.

Our guide was quite good about exploring the view from different perspectives and how the camp was propagandized. 

For example, he took us to the showers and showed us that they were indeed just showers for delousing and hygiene. The means for turning them on and off is inside the room and the doors are not air tight, thus showing that this was not a place that gas was used.

 

Near the end of the war, they did bring in gas. Here is one of the few remaining engines for pumping the gas into the gas chamber.

One of the best things about the camp is the many statues and memorials to the people who died there.  Here are some of the faces of those who lost their lives in Mauthausen.

  

 

Ordinarily I would not post pictures of unhappy students, but the occasion was solemn and the effects of seeing such barbarism are obvious.

 We were glad to have come and learned about the Mauthausen concentration camp, and we were happy to leave. It had been a long, hard day.