The German word of the day is gesund, or in English, healthy

I had never visited a concentration camp before I entered the gates at Mauthausen.  I had studied the Holocaust and had known the many intricacies of life in these despicable camps but I had never studied with my own eyes what happened here during the Second World War.  I was surprised when I got out of the bus to see what looked like a medieval castle made out of stone.  This seemed far from the barbed wire, guard posts, and the synonymous signs that said Arbeit macht Frei of my schooling.  From the parking lot there was nothing outside that suggested this was a workers camp during the war where thousands had died.  Nonetheless, it was soon learned that the stone exterior was actually built by the inmates themselves and so this innocuous building in the middle of the rolling hills of Austria still holds a distinct malevolence to itself.  Near the front one can see a plaque commemorating the American soldiers who liberated the camp in 1945.  Everyone knows that the American Army, as well as the armies of the allied nations, liberated the Nazi concentration camps but to see a sign honoring your countrymen for what they did so long ago is still somewhat stirring to view.  After going up a flight of stairs from this first monument you enter a park filled with statues and monuments commemorating the different nations who were victimized under the Nazis at the camp.  Mauthausen was quite different from other camps because the majority of its prisoners were captured soldiers rather than Jews.  Jews were only sent to the camp towards the end of the war when Heinrich Himmler made it clear that the death camps in the east had to be destroyed before the Red Army discovered them.  The amount of nationalities interned at Mauthausen is staggering, with men and women from nations not only under German occupation but also from countries allied to Germany or countries at war with the Axis nations.  You have statues and plaques for the Russians, Italians, French, Spanish, Hungarians, Romanians, Norwegians, Albanians, Dutch, Greeks, British, Americans, Bulgarians, and even the Germans themselves.  The amount of nations that commemorate their dead gives you an idea of the scale of German aggrandizement during the Second World War and the staggering casualties from the war.

After walking around the outer part of the camp for about half an hour we were given a tour of the barracks that held the prisoners before they were sent to the quarry to dig and then transport the stones up hundreds of loosely built steps.  The guide showed us how an inmate was brought into the camp and how he or she was almost given a baptismal of sorts in which all sense of humanity was taken away from them.  They were released of their clothes, their hair, and most importantly, their name.  They were now only a number in the eyes of the Germans and their similar appearances made them look less human, almost like clones, entirely absent of any human qualities.  It is surprising to realize just how important our outward appearance is to showing our humanity.  By looking different, by having different hair, or skin, or height and weight, we acquire differences that allow people to recognize us and therefore see us as another of the six and a half billion people on this earth.  But the Nazis were entirely focused on making each different group look similar in every way to their rank on the fascist scale of human intellect.  German film presented all of their countries citizens looking like blond haired, blue-eyed clothes of one another and the concentration camp administrators attempted the same type of system on the inmates by forcing them to look all the same as well.  Therefore, by looking like everyone else, you lose your humanity and have no say as an individual, regardless of whether you are a German or a victim.

During the tour we visited the sleeping quarters, a museum to the victims, as well as the gas chamber and the crematoriums.  More than fifty percent of the camp inmates would die upon entering Mauthausen but the camp was not meant to be a death camp.  The difference between this camp and the death camps in the east was that these camps focused more on working victims to death rather than killing them outright.  Still, prisoners were sent to the gas chambers or summarily executed for minor indiscretions.  When we visited the crematorium I was surprised to see it filled with wreaths and memorials.  I had been expecting the room to be entirely barren in order to add weight and comprehension towards what went on in this room.  The room had become a shrine of sorts for those people who became victims of the Holocaust and their families, countries, religious groups, and even armies, honored them for suffering they had to bare between the time the camp opened and when it was liberated in 1945.  There were some visitors who acted very immaturely around these symbols of contemptible human degradation but while I was disgusted as much as anyone else I won’t linger over it since I made this issue a point in my first blog about how people acted around the memorial against fascism in Vienna. 

Following the crematorium we entered the actual gas chambers.  They were smaller than I expected but I assume this was because Mauthausen wasn’t fitted as a death camp.  It was interesting to see several parts of the room were missing since the Nazis made sure to remove any revealing material that the Americans could use later on to prosecute the camp administration.  The exit to the gas chamber exposed yet another room used for execution and so the entire floor seemed built solely for the liquidation of the prisoners.  One of the more disturbing elements of the camp was the two separated hospitals set up in: one was meant for medical experiments on the prisoners while the other was created for prisoners who had grown too weak to work.  Those inmates who entered either one of the two hospitals had no chance of surviving and one may wonder how doctors comprehended their actions and if they were ever reminded of their Hippocratic Oath.  But under the circumstances, asking such a question would assume that the doctors some how had a stronger sense of justice than the rest of the camp personnel, which they assuredly did not.

After the tour was over, we saw a video about the survivors of the camp and saw footage shot by the Americans who had liberated the camp.  The strangest part of the video was how hardened the survivors had become in their interviews as compared to the American liberators.  The American veterans couldn’t help but tear up over what they saw there and yet these same soldiers had seen things some of the prisoners at Mauthausen may have never witnessed.  None of the experiences of combat could prepare the Americans for what they found in the concentration camps of central Europe, it was different kind of war than they could have imagined, and they did not know what to make of it when they first discovered it.  Many Europeans to a type of American naiveté and optimism that Europe has lost over the centuries and I can vaguely make the same assertion to the Americans who were interviewed for the documentary.  Even the Austrians who hadn’t suffered at the camps did not express any emotion over the questions they answered.  It seems they’ve come to terms with what happened while America still holds a less cynical understanding to the ways of the world and therefore feels a deeper emotion to many of these events.  Such an assertion may prove fallible but the general idea of our naïve American comprehension up to the present day holds at least some truth.

Following the video, we made our way back out into the park that held the myriad of international statues and looked over some of them more closely.  It was interesting how many of the statues did not assert pain or suffering but actually depicted soldiers of that said country overcoming their German captors and thus showing that in the end, their strength won over that of their enemy.  There was one statue that didn’t have any of this idealism though, it was a memorial to the children who died at the camp.  The statue was shaped in the form of a slide and a swing set and left one fairly shaken.  As we made our way through the park we finally reached the quarry where so many of the prisoners worked and died.  We made our way down the hundreds of steps; having now been remade for visitors, these steps were still quite strenuous to walk down.  As we made our way to the bottom, we read the signs stating how the prisoners would climb up only to have their German overseers’ push them back down, causing everyone behind them to fall as well.  When we finally reached the bottom there was literally nothing left from the quarry.  Grass and soil had grown over where the work once took place and now one would not recognize what evil went on here sixty years ago.  Making our way back up the stairs was quite an effort and as we went up, many of us thought of how impossible it would have been for us to carry stones on our back while making the arduous journey up the hill.

The entire trip to Mauthausen was quite an experience because it both validated many of the images and thoughts I had about the Holocaust but also gave me new ideas about who the victims were during the events of the Second World War.  Though many of those killed under the Nazis were ethnic groups, it has never really been noted how actual prisoners of war could be sent to these camps.  Most of the western soldiers sent to the camp were from Allied intelligence but those from the Soviet Union were regular soldiers because the Nazis had nothing but contempt for the Russians and their various satellite states.  The look of the camp was also quite different.  Though I saw the barracks and the gas chambers and everything else that is so ingrained into our psyches about the Holocaust it was still a surprise to notice the castle walls that hid everything that went on inside.  Its innocuous exterior belies its malevolent interior and with it all the history we have grown to understand from year after year of schooling.  What happened in the camp was most likely the same as any of the other working camps; its only major differences were the type of work forced on the inmates and the general occupation of a majority of the camp.  These were soldiers or civilians who were given none of the rights signed at the Geneva Protocol and they suffered under a regime that deemed them inferior, both as individuals and as races, regardless of the army uniform or passport they held before they were interned in the camp.  Mauthausen held within its confines many of the expectations one would have when they enter a concentration camp but when I actually got there and saw it for myself I was surprised by what had gone up after the war ended.  The monument park and the visitor center and everything else added purpose rather than exploitation and I was fascinated by all the countries that had citizens in the camp.  It showed that the whole world was suffering here while a global war was going on all around them.  Thoughts like that made Mauthhausen an important experience for me and I think it was necessary to at least visit one of these camps after studying them for so long.  It allowed me to connect all the things I had read with the reality and in the future will be able to add weight to whatever I study in the future.  Studying the Holocaust has always been a part of my studies since the history of the Second World War has always fascinated me and I must admit seeing the different battle sites and areas of historical importance has always been something I wanted to do in Europe.  I’ve already visited Normandy and Monte Cassino and though I wouldn’t place Mauthausen on such a list of sights I’ve seen to satiate my historical interests I would say it nonetheless had a great affect on how I’ll study this time period from now on.  The last note about the camps that was made clear to us upon finishing the tour was that such camps like Mauthausen still exist in the world and we should not forget that regimes throughout the world still attempt to subjugate different groups to suffer for their different ideas or outward appearance.  After viewing the camp and all its dehumanizing functions, that is one of the things that will stay with me the most.

When we finally got on the bus and left the camp, we came upon a small village hugging a river where we were to have dinner that night.  After spending the day in a place like Mauthausen this was probably the best place one could think of to spend the rest of the day.  I believe the town was called Wiedhoffen on der Illis and it had a wonderful storybook feel to it.  We met some of the professor’s friends there and a lot of us had fun getting to know the family and their children.  We spoke about life in America and the kids were interested in seeing what American money looks like.  What followed afterwards was them teasing us that our money looks too old to be any good.  Nonetheless, it was fun to see their fascination with us and we enjoyed discussing American television shows and movies that had made its way to Austria.  These discussions definitely helped humanize the Austrian people since there was so little chance to actually speak with real people living in the country.  It was also affirming after spending a whole day showing what one human being is capable of doing to another.  We thoroughly enjoyed simply talking about the things kids do in Austria and how similar they are to what we did when we were that age in America.

This dinner, set in a beautiful village with great company really helped after everything that had happened throughout the day.  It gave one a sense of common ground where one may speak a different language but that this should not preclude them from having the same interests as an American or anyone else.  I think this is even more important after seeing a camp like Mauthausen where peoples’ commonalities were ignored in order to produce a misguided and evil world view.  When eating with these normal Austrians you could talk about your favorite sports or your favorite characters from Star Wars and thus extinguish any belief that somehow you couldn’t enjoy the same things simply because you live on different continents.  It was a great experience to have and I will enjoy looking back on meeting this family and the fun my group had getting to know them.  When you can find common interests language is less of an issue than it was before and it humanizes people in a way only language seems capable of doing when you’re in a foreign land.  It was nice to make friends this way and I hope to have more wonderful experiences like this in the future whenever I get a chance to go out of the city and visit the real people that actually live in these countries.