Mauthausen

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Geo: 48.22, 16.37

The lake and mountains were shrouded in mist and low-lying clouds this morning, and it was raining off and on. Felt like home! At least it wasn't boiling hot again. We had to be on the bus at 8:15, which meant a 15-minute walk back through the town. I think we could have used one more day in Hallstatt, because as we walked along I noticed all sorts of little shops that I really hadn't seen yesterday. Also, I saw one more kitty sitting outside the fish shop, anxiously checking to see if the door was about to open.

On the way to Vienna we went to Mauthausen, one of the major concentration camps. It functioned as a death camp, but not really as an extermination camp. Roughly 100,000 men died there between 1938 and 1945, but mainly from the starvation diet and hard labor. And, of course, the occasional sadistic SS guard, or prisoner-on-prisoner violence. It's a pretty imposing camp, sitting up on a hill above the (very attractive) town of Mauthausen. It also sits on a granite quarry; mining the granite provided work for the prisoners and building material for the Nazis to sell. A steep, uneven staircase leads down into the quarry, and prisoners had to go up and down it multiple times a day carrying heavy loads of stone. A prisoner who could no longer manage the task – and it didn't take long on 1200 calories a day – would be shot or pushed back down the stairs. Mauthausen was the last camp to be liberated by the Allies.

At the entrance of the camp today is a large field. Aerial photos taken from a U.S. spy plane show that part of the field was the sick bay – from which very, very few sick prisoners ever returned – and the other end was a soccer field. Our guide, Casimir (who was wonderful), told us that the guards had formed a professional soccer team, and they played teams from other parts of Austria. The townspeople would go on a Sunday to watch the games, all while fresh transports of prisoners were being marched up the hill from the train station. Casimir's point was that ordinary Austrians saw what was going on; nearly everything happened right in front of their noses. How could they miss it? Also at the entrance to the camp, a swimming pool for the guards' recreation.

Part of the grounds is now given over to memorials to the various groups who were imprisoned at Mauthausen. Some are artistic, and the whole thing reminded me of a section of Père-Lachaise in Paris. While Casimir talked, there was a small group holding a ceremony in front of the Spanish memorial.

Inside the walls are some surviving barracks, as well as a shower room and the gas chamber and ovens. It's eerie and horrid, of course, but somehow I didn't find Mauthausen as affecting as Dachau. Perhaps it was because Dachau was my first visit to a camp … I don't know. I just remember that after Dachau, I was struggling on the bus to not break down sobbing. This time, I just didn't feel much. But when I realized that, I ended up feeling guilty and angry with myself. I suppose it's just that a visit to a concentration camp is a hard thing to process.

Prior to our visit, Daniela talked on the bus about the years between WWI and WWII and how Hitler and the Nazi party came to power. She said that she is part of a generation that doesn't feel guilt about the war and what the German people did, but that feels a great deal of responsibility to keep something like that from happening again. She also said that WWII affected the national psyche so much that it wasn't until just a few years ago that people began to proudly display the German flag again. She also has no idea what national pride feels like or what its use is. Whereas in the USA, we tend to feel pride when our athletes do well at the Olympics, in Germany the thinking would be more like, "Well, good for him; he won a medal." But there would be no sense of nationalistic pride on the athlete's behalf. I guess what this means is that while it takes 1.2 seconds to get a crowd to start chanting “U-S-A! U-S-A!,” you wouldn't catch a crowd of Germans chanting “Deutsch-land! Deutsch-land!”

After the camp, we stopped for lunch at a … well, it was sort of a rest stop. We had salad bar (which doesn't just mean a bunch of lettuce) and a chocolate roulade for dessert. John also had a Kaiser beer in a Kaiser beer glass, but my camera was back on the bus! Then it was another two hours or so to Vienna, during part of which Daniela showed us some of the movie “Sissi,” about Empress Elisabeth.

Driving into Vienna reminded me of Paris: wide streets and beautiful 19th-century and early 20th-century buildings. We are staying at the Hotel Post (so-called because it is across from the post office), and our room is again quite large. Rick is really spoiling us this time! We rested for an hour or so and then went back out again with Daniela for a short orientation walk. She dropped us in Stephansplatz and we were on our own for dinner. John wanted to find the Haus der Musik, so we got lost for a little bit trying to find it. When we got there and found it was 11 euros, we decided to go back tomorrow because we still hadn't had dinner and we were running low on cash. We ended up having dinner at Dai Fratelli, an Italian restaurant run by Italians. We each had a delizioso pizza, and John had a Zipfer beer. Zipfer?! We finished with gelato at Zanoni & Zanoni. Very yum.

Oh, and it rained all day. I'm glad the sun isn't blazing anymore, but I do wish the rain would go away. It's no fun being introduced to a damp city.

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Comments

[Mom]

A very interesting and informative post! Don't know if I told you we had a tiny bit of rain during the middle of the night on Sunday/Monday.....enough to break our dry spell of 48 days. The weather is now definitely fall.....sunny and coo
l with chilly nights. My kind of weather! We'll be judging in Wenatchee this weekend. Can't recall if I told you all was well with your house on Monday.

[Kate]

I think your reaction to the camp is perfectly normal, especially having already been to Dachau. It's hard stuff to process and when you've had a particularly emotional experience, sometimes our defense is to shut out the emotion the next
time. You have a huge heart, Teresa. Don't you worry yourself. I was thinking that the gray day was sort of appropriate for the visit, although not getting rained on would be better! Nice you got a break from the heat, though. Let the rest of Vienna and all it has to offer soothe your spirit!

[Sandy]

I remember when I went to Dachau -- I've never forgotten it. And I sobbed and felt sad the rest of that day. And then on to Vienna. Ohhh, I love reliving MY trip through your wonderful posts!