# UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

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## Gusen

The Gusen concentration camp was originally a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp. Gusen had been established in 1940 to house Mauthausen prisoners closer to the stone quarries where they were forced to work.

As the war expanded, so did Gusen, which became an independent concentration camp by late 1944. The camp earned a reputation for its harsh conditions and the high prisoner mortality rate. Of a total of 68,000 prisoners, nearly 37,000 died as a result of disease, cruelty, gassing, and shooting. After 1943, Gusen provided forced labor for assembling fuselages for Messerschmitt fighters.

As the Allied bombing raids on Germany increased in intensity, the Nazi leadership decided to move industrial war production underground, using concentration camp prisoners for labor. At Gusen, the inmates were ordered to hollow out of nearby mountains an elaborate system of tunnels that connected to mammoth subterranean installations for aircraft production.

In May 1945, as U.S. troops neared the camp complex, the SS planned to demolish the tunnels with the prisoners inside. The arrival of the 26th Infantry and 11th Armored Divisions prevented the SS from carrying out this atrocity.

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