Also incarcerated at Mauthausen were members of the International Brigades, most of them Communists of various nationalities, who had fought the Franco forces in Spain. Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its allies established more than 44,000 camps and other incarceration sites (including ghettos). Millions of people suffered and died or were killed. There were a lot of slave laborers - up to 320,000 - and many were killed in various ways. The Mauthausen concentration camp, situated about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz in Upper Austria, was the hub of one of the largest labor camp complexes in the German-controlled part of Europe, with a central camp near the village of Mauthausen, and nearly one hundred other subcamps located throughout Austria and southern Germany. Between August 8, 1938, and liberation on May 5, 1945, some 195,000 persons of both sexes were imprisoned in these camps. At least 95,000 died there. Mauthausen's first commandant was SS Captain Albert Sauer, who presided over the establishment of the camp on August 1, 1938 and remained commandant until February 17, 1939. If you cancel within 2 days of the scheduled departure, there is a 100 percent cancellation fee. [Mauthausen prisoner cards data] (ID: 20571) View all names in this list Search names within this list. As Allied and Soviet forces advanced into Germany, the SS evacuated concentration camps near the front lines to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Washington, DC 20024-2126 Upon arrival at the Memorial grab your audio guide (available in 11 languages) for a self-guided tour through the preserved grounds. In September 2017 I’ve visited the Mauthausen Memorial (former Mauthausen Concentration Camp) near Linz, Austria. List Type: Index; Individual document; Compiler: Yad Vashem. Information about the Mauthausen Memorial . Its history ran from the time of the Anschluss in 1938 to the beginning of May 1945. The perpetrators used these locations for a range of purposes, including forced labor, detention of people deemed to be "enemies of the state," and mass murder. Mauthausen, one of the most notorious Nazi concentration camps, located near the village of Mauthausen, on the Danube River, 12 miles (20 km) east of Linz, Austria. In December 1939 the SS ordered the construction of a second concentration camp just a few kilometres from Mauthausen. Guided tours, Workshops and Audioguide. We would like to thank The Crown and Goodman Family and the Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation for supporting the ongoing Mauthausen was among the last concentration camps to be liberated by the Allies. Educational services. Liberated prisoners leaving the camp, May 1945 (photo credits: Collection Stephanie Soldner Sullivan)Towards the end of the war, the Mauthausen concentration camp became the destination for evacuations from camps near the front line. An estimated 197,464 prisoners passed through the Mauthausen camp system between August 1938 and May 1945. Mauthausen and Gusen were the only concentration camps rated by the SS as Category III, the highest rating, and conditions in Gusen were even worse than at the main camp. Their daily lives were shaped by hunger, arbitrary treatment and violence. Those who were ill or ‘useless’ to the SS were in constant danger of their lives. Seventy years ago, on May 5, 1945, US troops liberated Mauthausen-Gusen, the hub of a large group of German concentration camps in Upper Austria, roughly 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz, on the river Danube. Mauthausen concentration daily trip from Vienna will include Vienna – Linz – Mauthausen village – Mauthausen concentration camp. Shortly thereafter, Reichsführer-SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler, SS General Oswald Pohl, the chief of the SS Administration and Business Offices, and SS General Theodor Eicke, the Inspector of Concentration Camps, inspected a site they thought suitable for the establishment of a concentration camp to incarcerate, as Upper Austrian Nazi Party dist… Some prisoners were in such a weakened state that many still died in the days and weeks after liberation. From the end of 1943 onwards, inmates were also deployed in the construction of underground factories, for example those in Melk, Ebensee and St. Georgen an der Gusen. In the foreground, two Spanish inmates. In 1940-1941, the guard unit, renamed SS Death's-Head Battalion (SS-Totenkopf-Sturmbann) and upgraded in strength to battalion size, was administratively subordinated to the Waffen SS, though the camp commandant still issued all operational orders to the battalion. In 1938-1939, the 4th Regiment ("Ostmark") of the SS Death's-Head Units (SS-Totenkopfverbände) guarded the perimeter of the Mauthausen concentration camp as well as prisoner work detachments deployed outside the camp. Prisoners during roll-call, between 1942 and 1944 (photo credits: Mauthausen Memorial, Collection Antonio García, S 4665), © 2021, KZ-Gedenkstätte Mauthausen / Mauthausen Memorial, Prisoners transporting stones on the "stairs of death", SS photo, between 1942 and 1944 (photo credits: NIOD, Amsterdam), Liberated prisoners leaving the camp, May 1945 (photo credits: Collection Stephanie Soldner Sullivan), Zivildiener – alternative civilian service, Prosecution of the Perpetrators in the Courts, Memorials at the Sites of Former Subcamps, Fees for the Collections of the Mauthausen Memorial, The Mauthausen Concentration Camp 1938–1945. Forty-nine permanent subcamps, as well as some temporary ones that existed only for a few weeks, were administered from the Mauthausen camp. The "Memorial Book for the Dead of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp and its Subcamps" The Mauthausen Memorial. (Evelyn Le Chene, "Mauthausen, the history of a death Camp"). Beginning in 1942, the SS authorities deployed an increasing number of ethnic German Waffen SS recruits from Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Croatia to serve in the Death's-Head Battalions at all concentration camps, including Mauthausen. The most convenient and cheap transport to get to Linz (a city of Adolf Hitler’s youth) is a train. Mauthausen, Austria's largest concentration camp, was known by Nazis as the 'Bone Mill' Inmates were made to carry granite blocks up 186 steps called the 'Stairs of Death' in brutal 12-hour shifts Mauthausen was one of the Nazis' worst exterminating concentration camps. With the arrival of more women in 1944, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps classified … Primary Source Document Date: Between 8 Aug 1938 - 5 May 1945. In August 1938, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps transferred approximately 300 prisoners, mostly Austrians and virtually all convicted repeat offenders or persons whom the Nazi regime classified as “asocials” from Dachau concentration camp to the Mauthausen site in order to begin construction of the new camp. 15,000 bodies were buried in mass graves. Testimonies by Survivors. Prisoners transporting stones on the "stairs of death", SS photo, between 1942 and 1944 (photo credits: NIOD, Amsterdam)On 8 August 1938 the SS transferred the first prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp. By the end of 1938, Mauthausen held nearly 1,000 prisoners, still virtually all convicted criminals and asocials. On May 5 1945, units of the American 11th Armor Division liberated the main Mauthausen camp. On 5 May 1945 the US Army reached Gusen and Mauthausen. Over time, it grew to encompass a number of sub-camps, such as Gusen Concentration Camp. It was established in April 1938, shortly after Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany. Among these Mauthausen had the most brutal … The Photographer Of Mauthausen 2018 TV-MA 1h 50m Military Dramas A Catalán prisoner at a Nazi concentration camp uses his office job to steal photo negatives of the atrocities committed there. After the Nazi regime initiated World War II, the number of prisoners arriving in Mauthausen increased dramatically and broadened in diversity. Mauthausen concentration camp photos, taken near Linz, Austria, is the focus of the photos … The construction of a wall at Mauthausen at the start of 1941. May 1945. Tens of thousands of prisoners arrived on several large transports. Witness Testimonies. At the end of April 1938, the SS founded a company, German Earth and Stone Works Inc. (Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke, GmbH-DESt), to exploit the granite which they intended to extract with concentration camp labor. Mauthausen Newsletter. More background info: The concentration camp at Mauthausen was set up only months after the "Anschluss" (de facto annexation) of Hitler's original home country Austria by the German Third Reich in 1938. MAUTHAUSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP LOCATION. Mauthausen Concentration Camp was established shortly after the Nazi Anschluss of Austria, in March 1938, near an abandoned stone quarry approximately three miles from the market town of Mauthausen, in Upper Austria. The prisoners were subjected to brutal treatment, were driven into electric fences and killed using petrol injections. SS Colonel Franz Ziereis replaced Sauer and remained the commandant of Mauthausen until May 1945. In 1944 and 1945, Trawniki-trained guards (some of them veterans of Operation Reinhard deportation operations or killing centers), air force, and naval as well as other military personnel, and, later, municipal police (Schutzpolizei) personnel and firefighters, served in the SS Death's-Head Battalion at Mauthausen and its subcamps. Extermination took place on a mass scale in gas chambers and a mobile gas bus. It was located about three miles from the town of Mauthausen in Upper Austria, 12.5 miles southeast of Linz. Select from premium Mauthausen Concentration Camp of the highest quality. Overcrowding, lack of food and rampant disease led to mass death among the prisoners in the final months before liberation. Nazi Germany incorporated Austria in the Anschluss of March 11-13, 1938. On 16 May 1938 work began in the quarry, initially employing thirty civilian workers. The SS and police incarcerated the overwhelming majority of the Spanish Republicans, more than 7,000, in Mauthausen in 1940 and 1941; individual members of the anti-Franco forces continued to trickle in to the camp until the last weeks of the war. View the list of all donors. Credit: Yad VaShem. Farewell to Pavel Branko. The policy of death through work was instituted by Chief of SS, Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler. If you cancel between 3 and 6 day(s) in advance of the scheduled departure, there is a 50 percent cancellation fee. The nearby town was the site of the Gusen 2 sub-camp which supplied the factory laborers. Many people, most of whom were innocent of any crimes, were tortured to death in its rock quarry, and in the tunnels of Mauthausen-Gusen, the most infamous of the sub-camps. The Gusen branch camp officially went into operation in May 1940. In 1940 and 1941, the average life expectancy was six months, and the average weight of prisoners in 1940–1942 was 40 kilograms (88 lb). Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp grew to become a large group of Nazi concentration camps that was built around the villages of Mauthausen and Gusen in Upper Austria, roughly 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of the city of Linz. The murderous working conditions that prevailed at these sites soon led to a dramatic rise in the number of victims.