On Thursday, official Austria, as in the previous year, initially held a non-public ceremony at the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial. Then the commemoration began on the former roll call ground in Gusen, a subcamp of Mauthausen. National Council President Wolfgang Sobotka, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (both ÖVP), several members of the Federal Government and MPs from SPÖ and NEOS represented the republic. Ambassadors from the victim nations, as well as the Chairman of the International Holocaust Memorial Jad Vaschem, Dani Dayan, and Gusen survivor Stanislaw Zalewski were also present.
In terms of content, the celebration was marked by the currently ongoing participation process for the expansion of the Gusen concentration camp memorial site, after Austria bought areas of the former camp last year. Instead of big speeches, this year there was a look ahead – several of those involved in the process outlined the value framework on which the memorial should be based, from internationality to tolerance and dignity to appreciation and encounter.
“Anti-Semitism, racism, totalitarianism, dictatorship, abolition of free speech and abolition of democracy lead to what we see here,” Nehammer said. He wished the project all the best and promised: “The support of the federal government is assured.” Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) had previously emphasized in a broadcast that “the ongoing redesign of the Gusen memorial is intended to be a place of remembrance and encounter for the next generations make possible”.
36,000 fatalities
Between 1938 and 1945, around 190,000 people were imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its more than 40 subcamps, around 90,000 did not survive. Officially, Gusen was only a subsidiary camp, but for many years the number of dead there was significantly higher than in the main camp. Today it is assumed that 71,000 prisoners from all over Europe were interned in Gusen, of whom around 36,000 died. The conditions were particularly tough.
The prisoners had to pay an enormous price in blood to build an underground tunnel system in which the Nazis ran a secret armaments production facility under the code name “Bergkristall”. When the US Army reached the Mauthausen and Gusen camps on May 5, 1945, many prisoners were so weak that they died in the days and weeks after their liberation.
Great involvement in redesign
While the center of the former Mauthausen main camp was handed over to the Republic of Austria in 1947 with the condition that a memorial be erected, and commemoration has been focused on this site ever since, the Gusen sub-camp was increasingly forgotten. Only a small memorial commemorates the victims, which has recently repeatedly caused discussions. Above all, Poland – the home country of many victims – put pressure on a dignified commemoration and even wanted to buy the area itself.
TV notice
ORF2 and TVthek will broadcast the “Memorial event against violence and racism” live from the Vienna Hofburg on Friday at 11:00 a.m. Before and after two portraits of victims of the Holocaust are on the program – more on tv.ORF.at.
In the previous year, the Republic of Austria acquired some areas and remains of buildings, including the former roll call area, the gravel crusher and two SS administration buildings. In the coming years they are to be integrated into the existing Gusen Memorial. Around 100 people from 20 nations are currently involved in the participatory process for the redesign in Gusen, explained the director of the Mauthausen Memorial, Barbara Glück.
The 97-year-old survivor Zalewski had already sharply criticized the fact that the area was subdivided after the Second World War and important places of remembrance disappeared. Zalewski explained at a press conference in Vienna that he expects concentration camp memorial sites to make the experiences of the inmates comprehensible.
Zalewski, President of the Association of Former Polish Concentration Camp Inmates, is considered one of the last living contemporary witnesses of the Gusen concentration camp. The vehicle technician was imprisoned by the Nazi occupiers in 1943 because of his participation in the Polish resistance and finally ended up in the Gusen concentration camp via the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There he spent 545 days.
Contemporary witness Zalewski in conversation
The 97-year-old Stanislaw Zalewski, who survived three concentration camps as a political prisoner during the Nazi terror regime, reports on how he was able to survive this time.
Zalewski expressed concrete ideas: “Everyone who comes to a memorial should feel after a certain time as if they were inmates in a Nazi concentration camp.” Therefore, the infrastructure should remain as it was when the camp was in operation may be. The concentration camp survivor also advocated reconstructing parts if necessary. Science should also be carried out on the spot. Zalewski also criticized a new “virus epidemic” called “patriotic egoism”: “It means that everyone thinks they were right and that they suffered the most.”
The fund is intended to help visiting school classes
In any case, the federal government wants to allow more visits to the memorial sites. To this end, she set up a new fund for support. From 2023/24 school classes in the eighth grade (fourth grade AHS/middle school/special school) will be supported with up to 500 euros to visit the Mauthausen and Gusen concentration camp memorial sites and the former Ebensee and Melk satellite camps. The fund is endowed with a total of 1.5 million euros per year. ÖVP Ministers of Education Martin Polaschek and Karner reminded in broadcasts of the great importance of conveying a comprehensive awareness.
The President of the Jewish Community (IKG), Oskar Deutsch, explained that strengthening the culture of remembrance through a visit to a concentration camp memorial was “an important contribution to raising awareness and the fight against anti-Semitism”. This is important “especially in view of the fact that unfortunately fewer and fewer contemporary witnesses are able to come into contact with young people”. The next step is to put a Shoah center on the agenda.
Multiple events
After the celebration, the light and sound installation “#eachnamematters” in cooperation with Ars Electronica in the entrance area of the tunnel system – the Republic has also acquired areas here – commemorated the victims. The names of tens of thousands of concentration camp victims were projected across the board and read out at the same time. The commemoration ceremony in Gusen will be followed in the coming days by numerous other celebrations of the liberation of Austria from the Nazi regime of terror: delegations from all over the world are expected to attend the traditional liberation ceremony in Mauthausen on May 7th, and on Monday the “Festival of Joy” will take place at Vienna’s Heldenplatz.
