Mauthausen, Concentration Camp

Danny and I just returned from a concentration camp memorial in Mauthausen, Austria. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up just remembering what I saw there. Our group arrived at the memorial and I found the gray and dreary weather fitting for the tense nervousness I felt about entering such a place.

Going into the museum hall, I looked out at the green flowered fields and the walled fortress of the concentration camp and was surprised at its unobtrusiveness. Danny had the same thought and said to me, “If you didn’t know what the history of this building was, you might think it is actually kind of nice.”

We watched a video outlining the atrocities that took place at the concentration camp. The evil of man knows no bounds. Historians estimate that between 200,000 – 300,000 people were killed in this work camp through hard labor, starvation, gassing, or other forms of torture and murder. It was the last concentration camp to be liberated by the Allies.

The theater was dead silent as the film came to an end, and we wiped our tears and headed into the mist outside to see the physical structures that bore witness to the carnage. I have seen videos on the holocaust before, and I have felt the numbness that comes with the knowledge of man’s wickedness, but being there and actually touching, seeing, and breathing in the air of that place is a whole other experience.

Climbing up the hill and through the fortress doors I immediately felt a physical sense of repulsion. I felt the weight of all those souls who had perished here, and was overcome by a strong feeling of evil. The chills I felt up and down my spine and the sudden dryness of my throat were a physical reaction to the anguished and malevolent energy that clung to the buildings. Mauthausen is truly an evil place.

We entered the rooms where prisoners were kept, and it was impossible to not imagine the hundreds of people who died where I was standing. I felt as if the tired eyes of all those tortured spirits were watching my steps and considering my presence silently. I was not alone in that room.

Danny and I came upon the crematorium, a staircase descending into a dark basement below the prison cells, and I could feel swaths of hate pouring out from its underground lair. I did not want to go into this room, I was afraid of this room, but I told myself I should see it, to make it real.

It was real.

The ovens, the body dissecting table, the corpse storage room, all of it was horrendously real. Scrawled on the inside of one of the cells was this message from a prisoner, “If there is a God he will have to beg for my forgiveness.”

As we walked back to our bus, Danny and I both breathed deeply as if we had been holding our breath for the past three hours. I felt like there were eyes on our backs, and I just wanted to distance myself from that place as fast as possible.

Seeing the darkest scars of history raises more questions than gives answers. It makes you search your soul for a purpose behind such suffering. In all the potential for good that humankind has, how does something this depraved happen?

It makes me realize how grateful I am for the freedoms I have, for the life I live. It makes me want to fight against future injustices, and I believe that Danny and I are in a unique position to do just that; Danny through law, and myself through teaching. Hopefully we can make a small contribution towards shaping the world into a better, more tolerant and just place to ensure that these tragedies are not repeated.