Never Forget

24-08-07 Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Amidst a beautiful green valley that was once a Roman trade route, is a living testament to the human viciousness that existed in the concentration camp Mauthausen. One of the most striking sights as one takes the walk down the hummock to the gate of the camp is of all the memorials of various nations and ethnic identities that have been consecrated over the years. The Holocaust is usually identified with the six million Jews that were slaughtered by the Nazis, but Mauthausen is a vivid reminder that the Nazis also killed gypsies, gays, political enemies like communists, and the mentally-ill. Of the 105,000-110,000 people who were murdered at Mauthausen, 40,000 were Jewish.

The Nazis began, almost immediately after they invaded Austria in March,1938, looking for suitable locations to set up concentration camps. Himmler and Pohl examined Mauthausen and the construction of the camp began in August of 1938 when the initial wave of prisoners came. Heydrich declared in January of 1941 that the camp should only take prisoners that were “highly criminal and incorrigible” while around the same time, Mauthausen was given a classification of III, the worst rating that a camp could receive which meant that prisoners should be exterminated. The inmates were barely fed, only receiving 1400 kilocalories a day and by the end of the war that had dropped to about 500-600 per day while they were forced to work, on average, 11 hours daily. Those who were unfit to work were executed by being shot or by being tortured to death- an example being frozen to death under an ice-cold shower during the winter.

The first foreign prisoners were Poles who arrived in March of 1940. The Polish prisoners were usually intellectuals that defied the Nazis. Over 7,000 Republican Spaniards were deported to Mauthausen- they had fought against the Spanish dictator Franco’s troops. From 1940 to 1942, there were 4000 Czech and 2000 Dutch Jews that were expatriated here. Additionally, 5300 Soviet prisoners of war were deported here as the Nazis sought to eradicate communists.

Four women fighters were brought to Mauthausen in April of 1942 marking the first time that females had come to this camp. The four women were shot on April 20^th along with 46 men to commemorate Hitler’s birthday. In October of 1942, 142 Czech women were grotesquely gassed in response for the Heydrich assassination in Prague. In all, over 8,000 women came to Mauthausen.

The first Jewish prisoner to be interned at Mauthuasen was in September of 1939. Over 30,000 Hungarian Jews were sent to Mauthausen in 1945.

The white barracks where the prisoners resided were unfortunately closed for observation. Hundreds of detainees were forced to live in these crowded living spaces with the windows closed in the summer while opened in the winter to make living conditions more miserable.

The most sobering part of the camp was the sick quarter which is where the crematorium, gas chamber, and execution corner are. The crematorium has become a memorial shrine to remember those who perished at the camp. There are various photos and plagues that dominate the room while an Israeli flag hangs by the entrance to the oven.

The gas chamber is where the Zyklon B systematically poisoned the detainees to death in a faux shower room. It began operation in May of 1942 when 208 Soviet prisoners of war were gassed. Over 10,000 people were gassed here including many Austrians, as the Nazis wanted to ensure that the Allies couldn’t find people that could aid in the rebuilding of Austria after the war. There was a plaque that has four names and but only three photos of men that succumbed here. There are only three photos because one of the photos was removed and replaced with a scratched swastika. The tour guide said that Nazi vandalism is not uncommon and that there are derogatory comments written by neo-Nazis found in the guest book every couple of weeks.

The execution corner was where prisoners stood in a corner resting their heads on a measuring board before a Nazi shot them through the neck. Hangings were also performed here. The oil used in the crematorium was stored here as well.

Still Alive, an autobiography by Professor of German at the University of California, Irvine Ruth Kluger deals with the author growing up in Vienna and her subsequent deportation along with her mother to Theresienstadt and then the death camp of Auschwitz. Both she and her mother remarkably survived the camps and only escaped along with her schoolmate friend Susi during the forced march of prisoners before the advancing Russian army. The story continues with post war life in a displaced persons camp in Germany and finally immigration to New York. She attended Hunter College. And here the story basically comes to an end – we infer that she had an unhappy marriage and had two sons. Only the remaining years of her mother are discussed in any detail.

The book has a number of agendas, not all of them admirable. Kluger was a member of the first generation of Jewish middle class girls to receive a decent, secular education. Previously Jewish women, although supposedly revered in religious literature, were basically no more than servants to their husbands. With the advents of the 1930’s, the situation changed and girls could attend Viennese public schools.

A second agenda item was the disturbed family relationships she encountered. Her mother had an unfortunate first marriage and had to leave her son in Prague- we are not informed why. She remarried again this time to Ruth’s father, a doctor. Apparently, Ruth had a turbulent relationship with both her overbearing mother and a father who, at least maltreated her – the details are not provided. Her father had to flee Vienna to Italy after performing an abortion. He later went to France, was caught and sent to his death by the Nazis.

The third topic discussed is life in the concentration camps. It is in this context that the story takes on a strange aspect. Kluger feels it necessary to point out that whereas male camp officials were brutal – one slugged her in the head even though she was only 15 years old – the women camp attendants were not. This must come as a surprise to war crime prosecutors who indicted numerous women guards. But then Kluger goes on to remark, twice in her book for emphasis that in the gas chambers in Auschwitz men clawed their way to the top of the chamber over women and children. Kluger could not have witnessed this. The sondercommandos who loaded and emptied gas chambers were always killed after their tour of duty ended – on the order of months. The members were always men. So how did Kluger find out this amazing fact? And furthermore, let’s assume that she is right. Does she know who composed the other layers of victims? Were grown women just below the men and children at the bottom? Are we to believe that the Darwinism of asphyxiation can be defeated by morality?

Another interesting topic deals with post war attitudes among German intelligentsia whom she worked with at Princeton University and during her summers in Goettingen. Some are revealed as insensitive and uncaring.

Finally the difficulties Kluger had with her mother, who both saved her life by telling her to lie about her age to either Dr. Mengele or his henchmen and yet tormented by her mother’s domineering behavior towards her. This conflict looms equally as large as her experiences in the concentration camps. And in so doing, diminishes the horrors of the Holocaust to almost a secondary story. Her book has value as the story of an indomitable spirit, a person who is proud of her Jewish heritage, but one whose is tormented by personal anguish.