An Enlightening Day at Mauthausen Concentration Camp

In grammar school, around 5th grade, I had a teacher that put her heart and soul into two historical events: the Titanic and the Holocaust. Naturally, if you wanted to succeed in her class, we were urged to do the same.  I never really got interested in the Titanic, but something about the Holocaust, even at that young age, grabbed my attention.

People might find such an interest a little strange and/or repulsive, but in reality, my interest does not lie in the awful suffering that the Jewish race experienced in the 1940's, but more importantly, my interest stems from a need to understand the Holocaust completely.  People get caught in the visuals, the awful pictures and videos taken, the gruesome practices, but I enjoy looking deeper into this time in history.

So why am I saying this, you ask?

Being in Austria, I am in the middle of an area that was in complete Holocaust turmoil 70 years ago.  Mauthausen Concentration Camp, now Mauthausen Memorial was the last and final concentration camp to be closed.  It is located two hours outside of Vienna, and we took a trip last week to see it.  It was a perfectly awful day, we like to say.  Around 50 degrees, cloudy, and raining.  I suppose 65 degrees and a bright, sun shiny day is asking too much.  

Without going into too much detail, it was an incredibly sad, but enlightening day.  We were able to watch a 45 minute long video that explained the usage of this particular concentration camp (interestingly enough, it was liberated by AMERICAN troops).  After walking around and seeing some pretty surreal things, my interest has grown to a new level.  I will never understand why a group of people were forced to face such a terrible time, but to avoid ignorance and a lack of knowledge, I plan to continue my "studies."

The entrance at Mauthasen Memorial

Stairs at the Memorial....what would have been seen here 70 years ago will bring tears to your eyes.