Mauthausen by Craig Lundell

On Tuesday, August 18, we visited the Concentration Camp of Mauthausen. It was a sobering experience. This was one of the many camps set up almost all over Europe between 1933 and 1945 by the Nazis for the exploitation and extermination of its opponents. Mauthausen was synonymous with death through slave labor in the quarries. More than 195,000 people were imprisoned in Mauthausen and its sub-camps, and more tha 105,000 of them - both men and women - were killed there or perished as a result of the torments of camp life. In the first picture, Tim is standing in the Roll-call grounds. Camouflaged as a shower bath, the gas chamber was installed in the basement of the sick quarters. The main camp was equipped with three cremation furnaces in the basement of the sick quarters. Tim is standing at the bottom of the quarry. The steep face of the quarry is referred to as the parachutists' cliff. Prisoners were pushed off the edge by SS guards. Entire groups of Dutch Jews were killed this way. From the approach road, the "death steps" (186 steps) led into the quarry. The prisoners were required to carry 100 lb. rocks up those stairs, several people in a row and one prisoner right behind another. Occasionally, one prisoner would stumble and fall causing a "domino" effect back down the steps. The guards would just laugh.