Mauthausen con't

Some facts about Mauthausen:

1. Built in August 1938.
2. Last camp to be liberated in 1945 (by the American 11th armored division).
3. Was a "category three" camp, meaning that nearly every person sent there was murdered.
4. Thousands of prisoners worked to death in the Wiener Graben rock quarry (which included the 186-step "stairs of death.")
5. Mauthausen interned thousands more political prisoners than Jews:

"During the war, the SS incarcerated more than 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war at Mauthausen, including 3,000 held at the Mauthausen subcamp Gusen. Nationals of virtually every German-occupied country in World War II came through Mauthausen. These included, among those prisoners who were registered: more than 37,000 non-Jewish Poles, nearly 23,000 Soviet civilians, between 6,200 and 8,650 Yugoslav civilians, approximately 6,300 Italians after September 1943, and at least 4,000 Czechs, and, eventually, in 1944, 47 Allied military personnel (39 Dutchmen, 7 British soldiers and 1 U.S. soldier), all of them agents of the British Secret Operations Executive. Further, the SS transported other thousands of prisoners to Mauthausen to be murdered without ever being registered as prisoners in the camp.

 "Before May 1944, the SS incarcerated relatively few Jews at Mauthausen. The total number of Jewish prisoners at Mauthausen between 1938 and the end of February 1944 was around 2,760. Most of them were reported dead by the end of 1943. From March through December 1944, at least 13,826 Jews arrived in Mauthausen, most of them Hungarian and Polish Jews and approximately 500 of them women. The SS had deported virtually all of them from Auschwitz-Birkenau and Plaszow camps to Mauthausen. In all, the SS registered 25,271 Jews in the Mauthausen camp complex, though the actual number of Jews, including arrivals during the last week of the war when the prisoner registration process broke down, may have pushed the number as high as 29,500." United States Memorial Holocaust Museum

The estimated number of people who died at Mauthausen ranges from 95,000 to 150,000. It is believed that at least 14,000 of those killed were Jewish, including Peter van Pels, the young man who hid for years with Anne Frank and their families in the secret annex. (More on him when we talk about our visit to Amsterdam.)

While at Mauthausen, Court and I opted to take an audio tour (which was packed with information.) I can't speak for all of the camps which you can now visit, but if you want to do the audio tour and have time to walk around and be silent on your own at Mauthausen, best to allow three or so hours. 

In the video we watched on our way to Mauthausen, one of the few survivors told the story of his arrival:  Once he and his fellow prisoners had been led into the camp and the massive gates were shut, and SS guard said to them: "This is Mauthausen. The gates you have just passed through are the way in. There is only one way out - " At which point he turned to point to the smoke stack some 40 m away.

Even writing that quote turns my stomach and chills my blood. What must they have felt? Having already endured merciless indignities at the hands of madmen - some of whom were once their friends and neighbours! To have already been ripped away from family and forced into packed, stinking cattle trains with no food, water, or room to sit/lie down, not knowing where they were going or what fate awaited them.  Hoping against hope that it couldn't be as bad as the rumours said, only to be thrust into a bitter reality more horrendous than most people could dream up in their deepest, darkest nightmares. I find the depravity of it all to be soul crushing; the presence of such pure, unspeakable evil. And to know you would die a slow, excruciating death while the rest of the world went on just as it had the day before...I don't know from where anyone found the strength to carry on...

Thoughts of the rest of the world at the time the camp was open really got to me while we were at Mauthausen. The camp itself sits atop a hill in a truly beautiful area of Austria. At the time of our visit it was autumn, and on every nearby hill we could see tall trees turning brilliant shades of gold and orange. As we stood on a plateau overlooking the Wiener Graben, I couldn't help but wonder what those interned at Mauthausen must have felt when they saw those same sights. To know that they were in such pain, such horror, and yet the world kept moving on, season after season, seemingly oblivious - or worse, indifferent - to their plight. The loneliness of standing in that place, even with your back to the camp and gazing out at the beautiful landscape beyond, was palpable. 

At the time, I could not conceive of taking pictures. In hindsight, I'm glad that Court did so I could better illustrate what I'm trying to explain. 

Some of the autumnal landscape surrounding Mauthausen.

After learning about the prisoners first moments at the camp - all of their clothing and belongings stripped away, heads shaved, etc. - we began to explore the barracks. I found it hard to get a sense of what it must have been like because half of each room is emptied out so visitors can walk in. On the walls are large black and white photographs of skeletal prisoners jammed into bunks - at least two, but sometimes more - per bed, row upon row. How horribly it must have smelled, and how easily lice and other diseases would have spread in such feral conditions.

Some of the barracks are completely stripped of furniture and feature more in-depth displays on what life was like in the camp, as well as stories of particular prisoners/families. I cannot say for sure, but those barracks may never have had furniture to begin with, as I know it was certainly a practice in other camps to throw the sick into large rooms where they lay dying atop one another.

 

The gates, from the inside. On the left is the laundry; on the right, the barracks. The front portion of these barracks had a particularly sinister use, which I will delve into below.

The courtyard outside of the barracks (above), was used for grueling roll-call drills, where prisoners were made to stand at attention for hours, or even days, without food or water, in detestable weather. It was a frequent occurrence, and something the guards did for their own pleasure. The video and audio tour told stories of guards coming to haul away people who died during these exercises.

I remember studying the Holocaust in-depth as a child, both in school and on my own. I read many books on the subject, some which were first-person accounts (i.e. Anne Frank's "The Diary of a Young Girl"), while others were fictionalized accounts based on real events (i.e. Lois Lowry's "Number the Stars"). What I don't remember is learning much about the fate of the women who were interned in these camps. "The Reader" has certainly provided some insight in recent years, but there is so much more to the story which my teachers and the literature recommended to me never addressed.Specifically, I'm speaking of the Freudenabteilung (or, Joy Division). More on this in my next post.