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Published: September 17th 2015
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The forecast was for a good day in the morning but not so sure about the afternoon, so the Langbath Lakes looked like a good option. It was a warm day with a very warm breeze blowing. The skies were clear and the lakes looked stunning with their mountain background. The Langbath lakes are 8 km from Ebensee and sit in an open basin. They are very popular with walkers, cyclists and bathers.
We bought a picnic lunch of rolls, ham, bananas, Snickers bars, apples and a drink and set off around the lakes. The bottom lake is the larger and is a lovely acqua colour with clear water. It is surrounded by forest with wide walking paths. Despite it being Thursday there were still a lot of walkers, hikers and swimmers out and about enjoying the day. We had been around the bottom lake before but not the top one and this one is really the jewel in the crown. The steep mountain sides come right down to the lake as it sits in the head of the valley. It is really lovely and we were lucky enough to have a mirror like surface for reflections. We found ourselves
a board sitting across a couple of tree trunks down by the water's edge and settled in for a nice leisurely picnic. While there we watched something small moving across the lake and checked it out as it came to shore. It was a snake. It came up onto a rock, then under it and eventually back into the water with just it's head sticking up and tongue spiking in and out. We don't get these in NZ so it was fascinating for us.
In the afternoon which turned out to be a very warm 31 degrees we went to a part of Ebensee that had had prisoners kept in a concentration camp until1945 when the camp was liberated.
First we visited the KZ Gedenkstatte cemetery where 8200 prisoners are remembered either dying here or from other camps. First, prisoners were sent to Mauthausen which was the main camp but later they used the cemetery here and there are believed to be 3600 bodies here (from info boards). There were too many for Mauthausen to handle. They worked in apalling conditions with little food and many succumbed to disease and malnutrition as well as beatings and killing. The
A water snake
This was an interesting encounter memorial stones are very sobering with some stating that the prisoners were murdered here. Families have erected some stones for their loved ones but larger ones in the area have been erected by individual countries as a memory to their compatriots - ones I can remember are, Czech, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Greece, Jews and Italy. All the prisoners names have been cut into glass along one side of the cemetery as a memory to them and there is a huge cross and information boards with pictures telling the history of the cemetery. 30% of the inmates were Jews and ethnicity determined how you were treated.
Next we followed the path to the tunnels which had been made by the prisoners. The Camp nearby was essentially to provide labour to build these enormous tunnels where research could be done by the Germans without discovery. In total there were over 27,000 prisoners here from Nov 1943 to 1945. They were to build intercontinental rockets but this was given up as pressure mounted for other developments. Instead they were used for the production of fuel and motor parts for war machinery. 7.6 kilometres of tunnel was completed. We couldn't go inside because
The memorial wall in the Ebensee Concentration Camp Cemetery
There are over 8200 names of men who died at this camp or other camps written on this remembrance wall in the cemetery it was shut to visitors but we had a good look at the tunnels and read the information boards. (Check out Google Images on Ebensee Concentration Camp)
It was all rather sobering thinking again about the way in which humans treat each other especially now, when there are ethnic groups in Europe seeking shelter from the terrible treatment they get in their own countries.
So ended a day of both good and bad.
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