Among BEAUTIFUL rolling hills, a place of sheer brutality
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Mauthausen is situated among rolling hills by the Danube River, surrounded by small villages. It was originally the Wienergraben quarry where rocks were mined for construction projects. After it was taken over the by SS, prisoners, mostly Jews and Russian prisoners of war, were forced under brutal conditions to work in the quarry. There were also gas chambers and crematoria built to exterminate those prisoners who didn’t die from forced labour and starvation. Today Mauthausen is a memorial to the victims of the brutality of the Nazis and to remind people of the evil that took place there during the war. ​

Mauthausen among rolling hills, surrounded by farm houses. How could the residents not know what was going on in their backyardt?

The barbed wire fence around the camp’s perimeter, described in Chapter 34 of Between These Walls.

The camp walls, motor pool and parade square

Another shot of Mauthausen Camp walls

One of the camp’s gas chambers

after liberation 

Memorials to the heroes and victims of Mauthausen

Memorial to the Hungarian victims of the Nazis at Mauthausen

Memorial at Mauthausen to the victims of the Nazis killed at the camp

Plaque indicating the location of the Command Staff building

First day covers commemorating the liberation of Mauthausen

The steps that the prisoners were forced to climb as they carried large rocks on their backs from the quarry

Mass graves of Russian prisoner of war and Jewish prisoners on the grounds of the camp

Mauthausen Camp walls

Inside one of the barracks where the prisoners slept

The crematorium ovens

Plaque commemorating the execution by the Nazis of 40 Dutch and British special agents at the camp

Another memorial to the victims at Mauthausen

A memorial plaque to the soldiers of the US 3rd. Army who liberated the camp

Postcard commemorating the 60th. anniversary of the liberation of Mauthausen