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Published: March 4th 2007
Barracks
Where the prisoners livedThe Austrian Train system (called OBB) has a deal going through the month of March, were students can by train tickets to travel on Saturdays. You can go anywhere in the country all day long for only 11 euro. This is a great deal, and we more than utilized our 11 euro, as we were on almost 10 different trains on Saturday! While Austria is very beautiful, it also is part of the dark history along with Germany during the Second World War, as it was a part of Hitlers government. In the town of Mauthausen, in Upper Austria near Linz, the concentration camp was built in order to imprison not only Jewish communities, but also people who went against governments rule. Many people from Mauthausen came from Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and areas in Austria. More than 200,000 people would be imprisoned here, and over 100,000 would also find there deaths here.
Men, Women and children were brought here, but only the Men were used to mine the granite in the area. When a person was brought here, their bodies would be shaved of all hair, which would later be used to stuff pillows. All identity was stripped from them,
and they were forced to live by a number given to them. People that died upon arrival, mostly elderly, were put in the insinuators immediately, but were checked over carefully for any valuable items, including gold fillings which cold be sold back to Germany. There ashes were then kept and the families could buy back the ashes of their family members for a price. The barracks, which were originally supposed to house 150 per side, were packed with as many as 800 people, forcing people to stand during the night so others could sleep. In the winter the windows of the buildings were taken out, and many people froze to death during the night. There was also one toilette for all people, so many were forced to go to the bathroom on themselves. Prisoners were forced to wake up at 5:00 am and worked until 6:00pm where they would then line up for role call, which would sometimes last until 12:00-1:00 am, so that they were unable to get a good nights sleep, and then forced to work all day, everyday with no breaks. There were not much positive thoughts throughout the whole tour there, and it was a pretty
hard couple of hours. I felt it necessary to visit a concentration camp because it is part of our history, (and only took place a few years back) It is hard to imagine that people could possibly treat others with such cruelty and no regard for their lives.
After our return, Adam Drake and I decided that we would hop on a train and go to Bratislava for the night. We packed our things for the night, and took the first train to Vienna, were we caught a night train, which consisted of only one train car! We arrived in Bratislava, Slovakia around 2 am after being awoken to show our passports to the local customs office. When we arrived at the train station, it was desolate. There was no one around, it was in the middle of the night, everything was in Slovak, and I began to think about the movie “Hostel”, which took place in this town! We finally managed to wave down a cab, and got a ride to a dark part of town, where our hostel sign was. When we hopped out of the car, it was impossible to see just where this
hostel could have been…..except for through a dark unlit alley, which we slowly made our way through, until we finally saw our hostel. We settled in for the night, in a twelve person room, which Adam and I shared with another guy and girl from Australia (sound asleep when we arrived). We awoke to yet another day of showers, which managed to subside as we walked around the town. Bratislava is a very old town, and had many obvious signs of the communist days. There were many old looking apartment buildings, but the majority of the town was absolutely gorgeous from the view in the castle. After walking around for the day, eating at a great Jewish café, and snapping many pictures, we decided to head back and catch up on some rest. I am happy to be back at home base where I can take hot shower and enjoy another dish of pasta.
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