Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Stairs of Death

Today we went to Mauthausen concentration camp and man was it amazing. We left around 8:30am and took a two hour bus ride to the camp. Right when we got there we got a guided tour and our tour guide was great. You could tell he knew a lot about the camp and he just seemed really passionate about the whole thing. I really liked the way he gave the tour because he focused more on making sure we understood exactly what happened to the prisoners. When I was at Dachau, the tour guide focused more on the history and the actual camp which is interesting but I thought this tour was better. It definitely gave you a sicker feeling in your stomach because the things he talked about were so horrifying.  One of his main points which I thought was interesting was that this camp became a way of life. Everyone working there just became accustomed to it like it was any other job. He talked a lot about how humans are capable of a lot of different things when put in different situations. The things he talked about are kind of hard to explain but everything he said was really interesting and I liked his point of view. He also had a lot of stories about talking to people who survived Mauthausen which I thought was neat. He told a story about a man who came back to visit a couple years ago and could not get himself to enter the gates of the camp. This story gave me goosebumps because I can’t even imagine what that would feel like.  It is also interesting how everyone reacts the same way when at the camp. Throughout the whole tour no one in our group spoke (which usually we get yelled at for talking too much!) and we all just took it in. I think that is the only way to do it because it is such an amazing and unbelievable thing. After the tour no one wanted to admit how hungry and cold we were. It was pretty windy and cold but after hearing about all the starvation that took place at the camp no one wanted to make a big deal out of it. Afterwards we had our lunch and got to walk around the grounds for awhile. One of the things we saw were called “The Stairs of Death” which are really steep stairs the inmates would have to go up and down with 100 lbs rocks on their backs. Mauthausen was a work camp so the inmates worked in the quarry nearby. We walked down the steps which were SO steep and really small. There were 186 of them which went down to a big clearing. As weird as this sounds it was really pretty! The sun was shining and everything was really green. It is a really strange contrast. They also had a spot balled the Parachuting Wall which was a cliff they through the dead bodies off of. That was a little disturbing to hear. It is really difficult to say I enjoyed the trip because it all is really depressing and gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach but it is all so interesting. We cannot deny the fact that these events took place so we might as well learn as much as possible about them. Overall it was a really good day and I enjoyed the trip to Mauthausen.

Later on Thursday night my German class went to see Nathan der Weise (Nathan the Wise) at the Landestheater. It is a play about different religions which was interesting but it was difficult for us to understand what was going on. We read about it in class which helped us but I still missed a lot of what was going on. It was still fun though because we got to do something special and going to a Austrian theater is something I haven’t done yet. After the play I went back to study for our Study Abroad seminar test we have on Friday.