# UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM

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## Mauthausen

The Mauthausen concentration camp was established shortly after Germany annexed Austria in March 1938. It was built near an abandoned stone quarry, along the Danube River, about three miles from the town of Mauthausen in Upper Austria, 12.5 miles southeast of Linz.

Construction began in July 1938 by a group of 300 prisoners who had been transferred from the Dachau concentration camp. By early October, Mauthausen held some 565 prisoners, mostly politicals and common criminals. By December 1939, the number had grown to 2,772 prisoners, primarily criminals, "asocials," political opponents, and religious objectors, including Jehovah's Witnesses. Eventually, anti-Nazis from occupied countries were also brought to Mauthausen, as were a number of British and American military personnel. Until mid-1944, there were relatively few Jews at Mauthausen, but then they arrived in large numbers from Hungary and from Auschwitz and other camps.

In time, Mauthausen would have three main sections: Camp I, the regular camp; Camp II, the camp workshop area, where prisoners were forced to work in SS enterprises (these barracks were converted to hold prisoners in spring 1944); and Camp III, a quarantine camp built in early 1944 to separate incoming prisoners from the main camp population.

Along the outer wall, opposite the roll call square, were several stone buildings for camp services (kitchen, showers, and laundry). The camp prison and gas chamber (the latter probably built in mid-1941) were also in these buildings. The crematorium was nearby. In an area near the crematorium, the Germans shot prisoners who were sent to Mauthausen to be killed.

South of the main camp, off the entrance road to the camp, was the hospital camp. Called the "Russian camp," it was originally constructed for Soviet prisoners of war. From the spring of 1943, ill or weak prisoners were kept in the so-called infirmary where they received little or no treatment and most eventually died. On the opposite side of the camp was the Tent Camp, consisting of 16 tents, erected in the fall of 1944 to accommodate large incoming groups of Hungarian Jews. The various camps were surrounded by walls and/or electrified wire. Watchtowers and SS guards surrounded the entire complex. The SS administration and barracks were located in the western area of the camp.

In early 1941, the Nazis designated Mauthausen as the only category III camp, the category reserved for the camp with the harshest regimen. According to the official decree Mauthausen was reserved for prisoners who were "guilty of really serious charges, incorrigible and previously criminally convicted and asocials, that is people in protective custody who are unlikely to be educable." Inmates so designated were subjected to barbaric conditions, the most infamous of which was being forced to carry heavy stone blocks up 186 steps from the camp quarry. The steps became known as the "Stairway of Death."

Periodically, prisoners in the Mauthausen camp system underwent selection. Those the Nazis deemed too weak or sick to work were separated from the other prisoners and killed in Mauthausen's own gas chamber, in mobile gas vans, or at the nearby Hartheim "euthanasia" killing center. Camp doctors in the infirmary used phenol injections to kill patients too weak to move. Nazi doctors also subjected Mauthausen prisoners to pseudoscientific medical experiments involving testosterone, lice infestation, tuberculosis, and surgical procedures.

While most inmates were killed by shooting, hanging, beating, starvation, and disease, Mauthausen did have a gas chamber capable of killing about 120 people at a time. The gas chamber was usually used when transports of prisoners arrived. Special demonstration mass killings were organized for the benefit of visiting Nazi dignitaries, such as Heinrich Himmler, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, and Baldur von Schirach, who were able to observe the killings through a small viewing window in the entrance door.

MAUTHAUSEN: FORCED LABOR AND SUBCAMPS

Mauthausen prisoners were used extensively as forced laborers. At first, prisoners were employed in the construction of the camp and in the neighboring stone quarry. During the war, forced labor using concentration camp prisoners became increasingly important to German armaments production. In the summer and fall of 1944, subcamps under the administration of Mauthausen were established near armaments factories throughout northern Austria. There were over 60 subcamps, including Gusen, Gunskirchen, Melk, Ebensee, and Amstetten. Thousands of prisoners were worked to death.

THE LIBERATION OF MAUTHAUSEN

As Allied forces advanced toward the interior of Germany, the Nazis began to evacuate concentration camps near the front lines in order to prevent the liberation of large numbers of prisoners. Transports from the evacuated camps, especially from Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen, and Gross-Rosen, began arriving at Mauthausen in early 1945. The camp became increasingly overcrowded, resulting in the serious deterioration of already terrible conditions. Many prisoners died from starvation or disease. Typhus epidemics further reduced the camp's population.

An estimated 199,400 prisoners passed through Mauthausen between 1938 and May 1945. Of these about 119,000 prisoners are believed to have died in Mauthausen and its subcamps. A third of them were Jewish. American forces liberated Mauthausen on May 5, 1945.

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