September 24, 2022
Seeing Mauthausen (Sept. 24, 2022)
The day was gloomy which matched our task which was to ride up a steep hill 2 k above the town of Mauthausen to see the concentration camp. The town of Mauthausen itself was less than stellar. it’s right along the Danube, which sounds nice but the town is squeezed right next to the busy road that runs along the river. The town has a few pretty rough looking hotels and cafes/bars and then one moderately nicer new hotel where we stayed, the Donauhof. I liked it because it was new (sort of IKEA-esque) and it had Eurosport on tv so we could watch Roger Federer’s last match at the Laver Cup, plus we looked right out at the Danube River. Dave thought is was a bit basic. We ate dinner in the little restaurant at the hotel the previous night. The food was ok but the service was laughably unprofessional; it was a very nice young woman serving us but we think it must have been her first night working. As usual in Austria, there was very convenient bike storage and charging. There was hardly anybody staying at the hotel- the season has clearly passed or nobody stays in Mauthausen! (Rick Steves recommends staying in Enns, which is across the bridge and down a few miles; we never got down there so don’t know if it was any improvement.)
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Anyway, back to Mauthausen. Stiff ride up the hill and a super depressing experience. What we do to each other as humans is truly shocking. For 3 euros we got an audio guide which did a pretty good job of explaining stuff with just enough detail to make you feel sick but not entirely throw up. The site is quite well preserved, helped by the fact that much of the site was built with stone (from the nearby quarry) so it is very substantial.
It was started in 1938 for political prisoners of Hitler and expanded as the war expanded and there were prisoners from pretty much every country. It became super overcrowded and disease was rampant. Of the 200,000 prisoners about 100,000 died there. The details of the dehumanization were difficult to hear about.
A few noteworthy comments about the place:
1. The location is beautiful. It’s up the hill so the views were stunning. Pretty weird for a concentration camp.
2. This was a work camp. The inmates were worked to death in the quarry next door.
3. There was an escape by around 400 inmates. They were all hunted down and killed and only 11 survived. The local townspeople turned many of them in. Nice.
3. Outside the camp after the war all the nations built memorials to the fallen and these were very moving.
4. The camp was liberated by the US Army in May 1945.
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So, that was our morning.
We had planned to ride into Enns to check it out but got diverted by some complicated road closures and then decided to go to the mall in Mauthausen to make a few key purchases: toothpaste, deodorant and cash. We generally avoid malls and had it not been for our real need we would have avoided this one! We were successful but it was a little complicated. When you don’t read German figuring out what is actually deodorant can be a bit more trying than you’d think. Plus, we were searching for a place for dinner because our hotel proprietor had informed Dave that we couldn’t eat dinner in the hotel that night because there was a group that was dining there. A bit in keeping with our feelings overall about the place! We found a pizza/burger place in the mall and “dined” there. It was a bit like an American Applebees or a TGIF but hey, we had no other choices. The pizza was respectable.
We were ready to depart Mauthausen.
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2 years ago
it stayed with me for weeks and we are still pondering Mauthausen. I can’t imagine the pain if we were of Jewish descent.
2 years ago