History of the Gusen concentration camp reappraised

orf.at (Hanna Ronzheimer), November 9, 2024

German original: https://science.orf.at/stories/3227507/

More people died in the Gusen concentration camp, the former sub-camp of Mauthausen, than in Mauthausen during the Nazi era. However, the camp quickly fell into oblivion. Now the memorial site is being redesigned. In a new publication, the history of the concentration camp has been comprehensively reappraised for the first time - including new facts and figures.

The Gusen concentration camp in the Upper Austrian municipality of Langenstein consisted of three camps, which were operated as a branch of the Mauthausen concentration camp. The prisoners had to build them themselves from December 1939. The prisoners were mainly political prisoners from Poland, Italy and Spain. They were forced to work in the quarry and for the armaments industry and had to dig tunnel systems in the mountain.

Thousands of people died here as a result of forced labor and murder; the book mentions 32,000 known victims for the first time. What happened here was quickly forgotten in Austria after the war because most of the buildings were demolished and residential buildings were built on the site.

In the countries of the victims' families, on the other hand, the history of the Gusen concentration camp has been dealt with intensively for a long time, explains Gregor Holzinger, head of the research center of the Mauthausen Memorial and co-editor of the book: “Gusen is very well known, especially in Poland, much better known than Mauthausen. It wasn't like that here. For example, I never learned anything about Gusen at school, only about Mauthausen.”

New information center on site

But that is currently changing. There has been a small memorial on site since 2005, but in the next few years much more is to happen here in terms of remembrance and coming to terms with the past. An information center was opened in Gusen itself this week, where visitors can find out about the redesign of the memorial site.

Various research projects are running in parallel with the preparations. New findings and original documents are presented in the book. These include, for example, the documentation of “shootings on the run”.

According to the new surveys, 1,498 prisoners were shot “on the run” in Gusen between 1938 and 1945. These were mostly disguised and targeted murders by the SS. “Afterwards, however, everything was done bureaucratically to conceal these murders,” explains Gregor Holzinger. “In principle, it was just a psychological aid for the perpetrators, for the shooters, to show them: You did everything right, you can keep doing it like this,” Holzinger continues.

Reappraisal from perpetrator families

Photographic material from the perpetrators is also new. Previously, there were only photos taken by the Allies or Nazi propaganda material. Now the third generation from the perpetrator families is contributing more and more photographic material from private albums to the reappraisal.

For Gregor Holzinger, this is an important new source for coming to terms with history. The private photo albums make it clear how close the relationships between the relatives and the local population were. “We have some photos that show the soldiers out and about in private with women from the local population. They drank together in the pub, there were engagements and weddings.”

The integration of the soldiers into the everyday life of the population probably also contributed to the fact that it was only in the 2000s that a decision was made to come to terms with the past. Now - late, but nevertheless - an intensive start has been made.

(Hanna Ronzheimer, ORF Knowledge, 11/9/2024)