08/26 - 08/27
Taking a two-hour bus ride out of Vienna, we traveled to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Upper Austria on Monday (08/26). Honestly, this was the location that I was most uneasy about visiting this entire trip. Mauthausen is a place where horrific atrocities were committed less than a century ago, thus it was important for me to be mindful of that fact when I was there and to not act like a stereotypical American tourist. Therefore, I didn't feel comfortable taking any photos of the interior of the concentration camp buildings. Instead, for my blog, I included pictures of the surrounding area and memorials for the victims.
The concentration camp is high up on a hill overlooking the town of Mauthausen. Beginning in 1938, prisoners arrived at the Mauthausen town train station from both inside and outside of Austria. They were then forced by SS guards to walk about four kilometers up the hill in order to reach the camp. Our ascension up the mountain on the bus only took seven minutes, which allowed me to see the woodsy terrain prisoners were compelled to climb.
Arriving at the concentration camp itself, its front facade gives off the impression of an imposing fortress, which acts as a show of power and superiority. Our tour guide, Daniel, elucidated that there were a couple reasons why the camp was built there: the access to a pre-existing granite quarry, the availability of train lines, and the proximity to Linz and the Danube River. Walking alongside the camp’s walls, we were told that the Dachau concentration camp was the blueprint for Mauthausen, as well as most other concentration camps. Many guards were taught in Dachau before exporting those cruel teachings elsewhere.
The granite quarry near the Mauthausen concentration camp.
What shocked me the most from our tour at Mauthausen were easily the remnants of a soccer field. The soccer field for the Mauthausen Nazi team was created by the forced labor of the prisoners. 2,000 prisoners leveled this terrain to make way for the field, and 1,000 of them died as a result. Locals from town would attend the soccer matches, completely ignoring or disregarding the prisoners as the camp had become normalized to them. The mundanity of this soccer field at the Mauthausen concentration camp speaks to the type of ordinary evil portrayed in Jonathan Glazer's The Zone Of Interest. This film follows a family engaging in all sorts of activities—from swimming in a river to hosting a guest in their home—all the while they live right next to the Auschwitz concentration camp. This represents how people are willing to tolerate or even participate in atrocities in order to reap the possible benefits from doing so (read my full review under the Movies section).
Passing by memorials for the victims—which were a diverse set of people—we entered into the gates of the infamous camp. We toured the washrooms and sleeping quarters for the prisoners. Daniel explained that violence was embedded in everyday life in the Mauthausen concentration camp. People were burdened with extreme labor while also being provided with little food and little rest time. Some of the prisoners were not directly murdered by gas chambers or shootings, but instead died from these awful living conditions.
A memorial for victims of the Mausthausen concentration camp.
To finish off our time at Mauthausen, we watched a movie that delineated the history of the concentration camp. Founded in 1938, Mauthausen became the largest concentration camp on Austrian land. The camp’s goal was to eliminate political and ideological enemies, and maximize exploitation of labor at the granite quarry. Mauthausen was the last concentration camp to be liberated in Austria, which occurred on May 5 1945. Nowadays, Mauthausen acts as a memorial site, becoming the central location in Austria to commemorate victims of Nazism.
On Tuesday (08/27), we had our sixth day of class. This class was formatted as a discussion in order to talk about our thoughts surrounding our visit to the Mauthausen concentration camp the day before. We elaborated on our general feelings of being at Mauthausen and how to behave in a way that is not disrespectful to the victims, especially as American tourists. Moreover, we discussed the fact that many of those that committed these genocidal acts were not mythological villains, but instead ordinary people. We then brought up the uncomfortable truth that—despite believing that we would refuse to do so—anybody may be willing to engage in these acts under certain circumstances.
We then debated the merits of preserving a site where large-scale massacres occurred, which brought up a discussion of Ruth Klüger's Still Alive memoir. A survivor of the Holocaust herself, Ruth questioned the need to preserve concentration camps. Ruth asserted that hanging on to what’s left from the Holocaust does not honor the victims and does not convey the experiences of those imprisoned in the camps. Much of the class disagreed with her claim, instead believing that it was necessary to preserve these places for future generations and to serve as reminders that this must never happen again.
After class, I worked on my blog and essay for a couple of hours. Around 6:00 PM, I joined a couple of students for dinner at the Zwölf-Apostekeller heuriger to commemorate our last week in Vienna.
The Zwölf-Apostekeller heuriger.
German Words of the Day: Lustig (Funny) & Wetter (Weather)
Provided by: Transparent Language