Mauthausen Konzentrationslager

Mauthausen Konzentrationslager Review

In the midst of all the beauty of the Wachau Valley, horror. Adolf Hitler had the Mauthausen Konzentrationslager, the main concentration camp in Austria, built here along the bank of the Danube in the town of the same name. The pretty town of Mauthausen, with numerous 15th- and 16th-century buildings, was selected as the site for a concentration camp because of the granite quarries nearby, which would provide material needed for the grandiose buildings projected in Hitler's "Führer cities." The grim, gray fortress was opened in August 1938 for male prisoners (including boys), and the conditions under which they labored were severe even by SS standards. Beginning in the early 1940s women were also admitted as prisoners. More than 125,000 people lost their lives here before the camp was liberated by the American army in May 1945. Much of the camp is preserved exactly as it was left after the liberation, and it's possible to walk through many of the low, wooden buildings. An impressive visitor information center has semiprivate cubicles with headphones for listening to videotaped testimonies of survivors. The site also includes a small museum and memorials, as well as a bookstore. From Linz, follow signs to Enns and Perg, and then to the "ehemalige kz denkmal," the concentration-camp memorial.