The Mauthausen Memorial

Mauthausen Memorial, Austria - 2022 Danube River cruise. The Mauthausen Memorial describes itself as “a former crime scene, a place of memory, a cemetery for the mortal remains of thousands of those murdered here and, increasingly, a site of political and historical education.” Between 1938 and 1945, around 190,000 people from over 40 different nations were imprisoned at the Mauthausen/Gusen concentration camps. At least 90,000 of them died in these camps. Prisoners sent to Mauthausen included non-Germanic people groups such as Jews, Slavs, Soviet prisoners, Czech and Polish intelligentsia, Roma, and gypsies who didn’t fit the Nazi ideal of racial superiority along with perceived social threats like homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and political dissenters including Social Democrats, Communists and anarchists. As an international place of remembrance, the Memorial preserves the memory of victims by their diverse origins, their nationalities, their ethnic, cultural and political self-conception, and attempts to address the effects of those mass murders upon the victimized nations.

Dutch Memorial. This memorial commemorates the 1,658 citizens from the Netherlands who were murdered in Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

Polish Memorial. About 30,000 Polish citizens lost their lives at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

Yugoslavia Memorial. The two columns represent crematorium smokestacks and the design on the stone monument is a series of tumbling skeletons. Mauthausen…

Jewish Memorial. This memorial commemorates the thousands of Jews who were murdered in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. The monument is shaped like a large…

German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Memorial. The oversized barbed-wire fence overlooks the stone quarrie and the “Stairs of Death” where innumerable…

German Democratic Republic (East Germany) Memorial, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

Bulgarian Memorial. This memorial commemorates the Bulgarian victims who were murdered by the Germans at Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

Albania memorial showing an Albanian resistance fighter standing over a defeated Nazi soldier about to strike him in the face with his rifle stock. Mauthausen…

Hungarian memorial depicting resistance fighters raising their fists in triumph. Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

Republic of Slovenia Memorial, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

Soviet Memorial, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria. The Soviet Union lost the most citizens in the camp, probably over 32,000 soldiers, officers, and…

Czechoslovak Memorial, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

The Karbyshev Monument. On February 16, 1945 Russian General Karbyshev and about 200 other prisoners were forced to stand outside at night in the freezing…

Plaques recognizing the liberation and humanitarian services provided by the U.S. Army in May 1945. Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

This is a memorial commemorating the June 24, 1988 visit of Pope John Paul II to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

The Room of Names. The memorial lists the names of 81,000 people who died at the Mauthausen and Gusen concentrations camps who are known by name. Around 190,000…