Mauthausen.

This morning we departed the Austrian Tyrol region for Prague, Czech Republic. Our day stop was at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria. If you've known me for very long you know that the only way you'd get me to a concentration camp would be to bus me in and give me no choice. Luckily, that's exactly what happened. I have an appreciation for visiting places like this and getting a deeper understanding for what these people had to endure, I just find it extremely difficult emotionally.

On the bus ride there we watched a brief video about the camp that included some first-hand accounts of prisoners and people from the surrounding town. It was difficult to watch but gave me an appreciation for what I would see at the camp.  If you YouTube Mauthausen Concentration Camp you can watch the video- it's about 40 minutes long. 

Mauthausen was the last concentration camp to be liberated. The people that arrived through the big wooden doors were told: "that is the way in...

And that is the way out..."

What the people endured here was absolutely harrowing. 120,000 people were murdered there either via extermination in the gas chambers or due to brutal treatment, malnutrition, exhaustion, or disease.

The site for the camp was chosen for it's isolated area and quary. Able-bodied prisoners were forced to work in the quarries. The guards made them carry huge stones up the "death stairs"- a long, steep, stone staircase. Often they would stumble, taking down others on the staircase. 

Although this was a difficult stop, it was extremely informative. The museum and memorial portions were extremely well done.

"For the dead and the living, we must bear witness." -Elie Wiesel